Thicker Than Water
by Taotatum
Summary: Sequel to Blood Between Friends. Almost a year after Heero's death, trouble brews between the new couple. Ghosts refuse to lie still, but can they rouse the truth in time to save Quatre? Some NCS hints and abuse. 2x4, with 3 and 5 involved.
1. In your mind, chasms appear

_"To kiss you like darkness."_

_"All of it, for you, just to smother you in my heart and muffle your thoughts with my confusion."_

_"Adoration."_

_Hands reached towards him, folding over the small form easily as he cringed against the corner the walls had provided him. Teeth flashed above in a triumph grin, vulpine and cruel, and eyes smoldered in the dimness of desolation. They closed, those hands, so tight, choking, around him and lifted him like a wicked child with an insect. Intents to harm. It hurt to breath._

_"Love you."_

_Fingertips the size of logs ground into his ribs, and he had the hellish honor of hearing his own bones snap as he was brought closer to that hungry maw, knifelike shards of his body digging into his lungs and making the air the flew frightened from his mouth hint of crimson mists._

_"Just to love you."_

_The teeth opened, became glinting razors embedded in happily decaying flesh, and warm air that carried death on it washed over him with it's final accusation._

_"Killed for you… Quatre. For you. Now, I'll kiss you like darkness."_

xoxoxoxox-

As the owner of those teeth clamped down on him, sliced through skin and bone alike, and pulled him apart at the middle to devour him with it's body like it had with it's love, the boy in the midst of the dream cried out and rolled over…

… And right off the bed.

Quatre struck the floor with a bone jarring thump, air rushing out of him in one alarmed squawk of protest. Then the blankets fell after him, and the sound was drowned by freshly washed black cotton. He struggled like a man in quicksand, arms flashing here and there as they flailed helplessly, and at last the golden haloed head popped through an opening with petal pink lips parted in a gasp of panic.

The sun streaming through the window caused him to yelp again, hands slapping up over his bleary aqua eyes. In the safety of their cupped shade, he tried to grasp at the fading memory of what had woken him and discovered nothing. Like sand, even the basics of it were fleeing from him, tumbling between sleep clumsy fingers.

_Another nightmare._ He sighed, tired and frustrated.

Like the hundred or so others he had since **that** morning. At least twice a week, though that was better than the six it had been for months afterwards. Maybe in another quarter of a year, he'd be able to say there was only one a week.

That morning.

It was still all too easy to remember his worry when he'd awoken that next morning and Heero wasn't there beside him, having snuck in some time after he'd finally given up his patient, fretting waiting and turned in for some restless sleep. To think of that day spent pacing and staring at a clock, of racing to the window every time a car went by, pulling back the shades with a small smile that wilted when the vehicle drove by and wasn't Heero's. Making dinner and setting four plates, but this time Heero wasn't just working or too busy to join them. To remember the hug that Trowa had given him, the miserable look, and the way he'd felt so cold when he'd curled up alone that night, staring at the moon rising outside his window and thinking that it looked like an indifferent eye. And how he'd blamed himself, knowing he should have made time instead of turning his lover's advances down, should have thought of a more diplomatic way to approach the needed subjects with Heero.

Too easy to remember sitting on the couch with a cup of cooling tea in his hands the next day, staring at a TV which wasn't on and feeling his heart ache. To recall how Wufei had snorted and called him a 'little housewife', and how he'd surprised the brunette when he'd thrown the cup at him, and then the grudging apology he'd given while they picked up the pieces of it that had rained down when it struck the wall over his head. The mark was still there now. He traced his fingers over it sometimes, and wished for the blind nerves he'd had then, before it had become utter desperation and realization.

Too easy, also, to hear the sharp chime of the doorbell that had made them look up in unison. His mind had begged him then not to let Wufei get up and answer it, Heero wouldn't knock, and because hadn't his heart already told him something was wrong? That some bond he didn't talk about was broken inside him like a freakish miscarriage? Something that was there two days ago, a fullness in his heart that bore the stoic pilot's name, was gone now.

He hadn't spoken in time though, and his fingers had only brushed Wufei's pant cuff as he'd gotten up to open the door. Inside, he'd cringed and wailed.

He still heard, nearly every day, the strangely final creak of the door's hinges when Wufei had pulled it open, and that blue dressed officer had been standing there in the sunlight. No cheerful 'good day' smile of his face, no sir, just that tired and bad news bringer frown.

"Are you friends of Heero Lowe?"

_Not Yuy. Because that would have been just too obvious, after all our missions. We all lost a lot more than a name or two in that war, didn't we? Lowe was still so close to the truth, but… But any more and he might have slipped into his 'just a soldier' attitude again, where I couldn't touch him. Lowe was nice…_

Wufei nodded, and the man looked down at his clip board before taking a breath. Quatre felt the strings of his soul tighten with that one breath, and knew that there were hungry scissors just waiting to cut, to sever him from the pretty and sad boy that had somehow become so important to him. He hadn't really chosen to scoop up the broken frame of the brunette the war had left behind, it had just happened, and in doing so he had realized just how incomplete he could be too.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news. A young man's body was found in the park yesterday morning… Shot. Suspected theft. We traced him here by a vehicle also in the vicinity. We need someone to come down to the station with us and-"

And that was where he stopped remembering. That grim faced officer with the monotone voice, Wufei's face slowly losing it's color, the world outside moving on like nothing had happened.

Cars drove by. Birds chirped. And somewhere a child laughed.

Later, he'd been told he'd started screaming, had started throwing things and clawing at his own face. He didn't remember that, though three days later when he came to, when the tranquilizers had finally started to leave his system, the marks on his cheeks were still healing. Duo had been upstairs, and had apparently made it in time to restrain him. To keep him from lunging at the cop and demanding to be taken to Heero. Right this minute, and stop this fucking joke.

He didn't remember that.

He was glad.

Everyone was so supportive, even Wufei, though Quatre's surprise at that only clicked in weeks later when he looked back. Time then had been a blue and black fog of denial, anger and loss. No one tried to shake him and snap him out of the depression that grew on him like a second skin. A sickening fungi that took some of his body weight, left dark marks under his eyes, and left him with the urge to gnaw at his bottom lips almost constantly.

Trowa took it upon himself to tend to the house, cleaning and dealing with the paper work that Heero had previous ruled over with his usual silence and tact. Wufei handled all of the funeral arrangements and made sure that despite his arguing (in a few cases, even hysterical fits), Quatre attended the ceremonies. Now he was glad for that, though then he wanted to stab Wufei with his own sword. Preferably in the eye. It had helped jump start the 'healing', he supposed. Seeing that stone in the ground, hearing Wufei cough to cover his own tears as the preacher droned on about an after life Quatre wasn't sure he believed in had made him sure it was real, and that waiting up at night with his eyes on the door wouldn't miraculously turn up his lover and friend. Heero wasn't coming back. He was dead.

And Duo… His best friend, had been there to carry him through it all. He reminded him to change, and helped him wash his hair on the days when he could only stand under the stream of scalding water and cry. He'd been there to hold him when it all began again in his dreams, with Heero stalking out of the house never to return and it was all his fault, to wake him and make him cope. He'd been wonderful. They all had.

It hurt now, almost a year later, and it always would because that little space in his heart that had been Heero's was empty and would stay that way, but gradually the pain had gone from a consuming agony, to a searing itch, to a gently aching memory.

Eleven months after that morning, he was starting to feel like a human again. A month after that, he thought it would be possible to love again. Hadn't Duo already proven that Quatre could laugh and it was all right? That Heero would want it, not the guilt induced life he'd readily accepted? Another month after that, and he was sure he could, even wanted too, and when his friend had asked-

Sleepy purple eyes appeared over the edge of the bed, blinking down at him through a tangle of red-brown bangs.

"Heya, Kitten. Was my morning breath so bad you decided the floor was better for your snoozing?" Quatre shook away his weary consideration of the past, for about the seventh time this week so far (sad when that was still better than it was just last month) and smiled up at the heart-shaped face of his boyfriend. "No. Not at all."

To prove it, he sat up on his knees, wincing from a bruise that was bound to make it's appearance sometime within the next few hours, and nuzzled lightly at Duo's cheek with the end of his nose. "Just had a bad dream."

"You have too many of those." It was an old statement, and one Duo was only half focused on with that sweet contact. His arms appeared from beneath his remaining blanket and wrapped easily around the blonde's shoulder, drawing him closer to dust a kiss just beneath one ear. "You know, they have pills that might help with that, Kitten. I know you don't like them, but maybe it'll help get rid of them quic-"

"No." Drawing back, cerulean eyes met violet steadily. There was sadness still, deep in that strange dark color, but Duo couldn't deny the stubbornness that also lurked. Gods help the man that tried to get Quatre to change his mind about anything once that shade had appeared. "They aren't that bad… And really, I don't mind. It's… It's almost good. It lets me know that I remember him."

Quatre lowered his head, and so didn't see the flicker of emotion that flashed in Duo's eyes. Which was good. If he'd seen the turbulent spike of aggravation, perhaps he would have thought twice about leaning into Duo's warmth, and about slowly stroking along the side of the boy's pale neck with one hand. It was those actions that sent that flare scurrying back into the darkness of Duo's pupils, and there was no way to tell what would have happened if Quatre had seen and reacted.

"I know I remember him anyway, every day… But sometimes I wonder. I hear people talk about such things all the time, how they forget the way it sounded when someone laughed, or the smell of their hair when you hugged them… The press of their hand in yours. I remember that all now… But if the dreams I am having are about him, are strong enough to make me fly off a bed, maybe I won't need to worry about that in the future, right?"

"Yeah, maybe…"

The Arabian frowned, then sighed and turned to press his face into the soft nest of hair at the base of Duo's neck. "Maybe they are just nightmares though, nothing I should pick apart and analyze. I don't know why I'd be afraid of Heero. I was never afraid of him when he was… You know, still here. Not even when he got mad or struck out at me."

Along his side, graceful pale fingers curled possessively, looping into the blonde's shirt. "Would it really be so bad to forget?"

Duo knew it was a mistake before the words had ever fully left his mouth.

And just like that, the boy was out of his grip, looking hurt and lost… And angry. Quatre stood, wobbled, then got his balance as he nudged the blankets out of his way with one foot and glowered unhappily at his red haired friend. "Of course it would! He was my friend, Duo! I would never want to forget any of you, no matter what! And I loved him! You don't just forget love, whatever happens. Once you've admitted you care about someone on that level, that part of you is stained permanently with the emotion. It doesn't wash away, it doesn't fade, it's just -there-. …That was a cruel thing to ask."

The last bit of the outburst was little more than a colorless whisper, aqua eyes dull but dry as Quatre turned and slipped to the door and then out in the hall. Off to the kitchen, to make breakfast for them, and perhaps for the others if they were around.

Duo let him go.

It was a foolish thing for him to have said, he recognized that now. Sometimes though, particularly when the blonde's beautiful eyes gained that distant quality and he knew he was contemplating dark blue eyes instead of purple, it was hard to listen to what was right. Anger was easier to react to than common sense.

_Anger at a dead boy? Oh, come on, Duo. Grow up._ He let out a dry laugh, rubbing at one temple sheepishly. _Let him have these mornings. I've got him. I've got his smiles when we're out walking around and the sun is shining. I have his laughter at my jokes. And his hand in mine when we watch movies._

The smile grew, slightly, into a smug smirk as he shifted his long legs off the bed, hissing when the bare feet hit the cold wooden floor but keeping them there anyway. "And at night, I've got his body. Heero's got… Well, got worms by now." Another chuckle followed that statement, along with a shiver he really didn't notice.

"So let him keep these stupid mornings."


	2. Deeper darkness

Quatre was at the stove, flipping golden brown pancakes with careless grace, when Duo walked into the kitchen and sank into one of the lop-sided aluminum chairs. Just by looking at the back of his boyfriend's lowered head, he could tell the argument was still thick between them, and thriving with a life of it's own. He'd have to give this one more than a few minutes to vanquish it. 

It was just a matter of finding that one proper edge to wedge his fingers under and start prying.

As Duo was contemplating the best angle at which to tackle the problem, the lanky form of Trowa appeared in the doorway, with his usual wraithlike silence.

He leaned against the frame with his arms crossed, watching the pair before him with his tell-nothing gaze, and thought once again as he had several times this week, how impossible it was to catch Quatre alone now. At first, after Heero's death, it had been difficult to pull the blonde from his room. It had become a trying game to see if one could make the little Arabian speak with them, open up, or get even a flicker of the happiness that used to exist naturally in his aqua eyes. Now, at least he wasn't isolated.

_He's just a little bit smothered._

Not that he could really blame Duo for his clinginess. One would have had to have been blind not to notice the way the braided baka had eyed Quatre, from the time even before Heero and the blonde had made their unlikely union. Duo was always a shade in the background, peering in Quatre's direction with mournful, wanting eyes. Now he had his chance, and in a way, Trowa thought it was only to be expected that he used it to the very best he could.

… But sometimes it tried his patience. Like right this second.

He wouldn't deny Duo his closeness, but his little friend was also one of those beautiful beings that couldn't survive in a cage. Sometimes, when he came upon scenes like this, with Duo perched at the table and watching Quatre with a vulture's intensity, he wondered if Quatre knew that's what it looked like.

Most likely not, or he was sure he'd start seeing the boy start trying to gently separate himself. The question Trowa most often wondered, was how Duo would react to that?

If he'd been asked a year ago if the braided boy was one of those people that needed someone, needed to be seen and always in the front of someone's mind in order to really feel alive and worth something, he would have said no. He wasn't so sure of that any more.

Finally the brunette walked into the room, with a step that was heavier than normal, to alert the pair and not startle them. Within seconds both had glanced his way, Quatre with a soft smile of welcome, and Duo with… Well, a grin.

_But was the scowl before that aimed at me?_

_Paranoid. You're getting paranoid._

Trowa moved over to one of the chairs to the side of Duo, nodding his greeting and getting a cheeky little salute in return, and dropped his long body into it in a draping sprawl.

"Morning, Trowa. Are you hungry? I'm making more than enough for all of us."

His lips quirked up in what the others accepted to be his own version smile. _Of course he did. Enough to feed the neighbors too most likely, if they decide they want pancakes._ "A little. Thank you."

"Not at all." He sounded happy with the answer, or just happy to put any of his skills to use. All of them probably had moments like that, since their 'main' talent had fallen into a state of unwelcome at the end of the last battle. It was likely the same inward swell of joy Trowa got when he found something to do with the body he'd spent years training, and perhaps what Duo felt when his sneaky talents were needed.

"Quatre? I've got something to tell you."

Duo looked over first, his expression oddly one of suspicion before it melted into mere curiosity, and if Trowa hadn't been watching out of the corner of one green eye, he doubt he ever would have suspected that one-second-to-the-next change.

He might have called Duo on it, tired of the foul cast-off glances he got daily now, as if he was suddenly going to snag his blonde friend and run, except for the fact that Quatre was turning and gazing at him expectantly. For a bit, he was still tempted, just to see if it would put an end to it, but something in the blonde's faintly pained eyes made him decide that now wasn't the time to start picking at minor things.

"Wufei called earlier. He's still in the city."

"'Course he is," Duo huffed, but looked mildly amused, "He lives for his job. I'm surprised he doesn't just move into his office already!"

"Actually… That's what the call was about."

Duo raised an eyebrow, teasing set aside, and Quatre just looked at Trowa with wounded eyes that were likely already guessing at what that meant.

"He wants to get an apartment closer to the company. The transit is bothering him, and he's been thinking about it for some time. He's looking around this weekend, and was hoping to get a hold of you later and see if you'd be willing to help, Quatre."

Of course Quatre had known their little misfit family was temporary, but after losing his own due to his choices in the war and because of his mistakes, it still caught him off guard and left one hand creeping along the cool tile counter to get a grip as the world tilted it's perspective yet again. "Oh… Oh, yeah, I guess that's fine. Good planning, really. If he calls again, just let me know, okay?"

Trowa watched him turn back to his cooking, watched the thin shoulders tense, then slump in resignation he doubted Quatre even knew he felt or showed… Then looked to the side, and saw the resentful light in Duo's eyes. Apparently it was his fault that he'd had to tell Quatre, and that the little blonde was taking it badly.

He could have said something then, have slung an accusatory glare right back Duo's way before finally dragging the American out of the house and trying to figure out just what in the hell was going on, but… He just couldn't make himself. Not yet. Quatre's unhappiness was always a contagious thing with them, like his smiles, and it weighed heavy on the Latin pilot's shoulders and he turned and slipped from the kitchen as silently as he'd come.

Duo watched him go, and was glad.

_Fucking doomsayer. World's just full of miserable creeps who are eager to share these days, isn't it? And now just look at Quatre…_ Violet orbs shifted to the curved back, to the pale side profile of the youth's face, and then down to the unsteady bow of his mouth._ He coulda handled that better. Hell, Wufei should have come back and told him himself, or better yet, shoulda considered just getting a better, closer job. But **nooooo**, not Wufei, heaven forbid the prick think of someone other than himself, right?_

_Now he's still upset, with me and with this, and it's going to take forever to shake him out of this funk and get him to smile for me again. My precious smiles._

_Unless, of course…_ He smiled, mind ticking quickly away in the palpable quiet.

Getting up, Duo moved across the linoleum floor and a second later, wound his arms around Quatre's slim waist. He rested his chin on one shoulder after darting in and gently kissing the valley of the blonde's throat. "Hey. It'll be okay. Wufei can take care of himself, and you know things have been tense lately when he's been home anyway. He just…"

He shrugged, letting his boyfriend feel the motion against his back, and suppressing the grin that wanted to come when Quatre sank back against him. "He needs to stretch his wings, you know that, Quat. He's still your friend, and still needs you, he just needs to know he can do it too. It's part of that healing process you're always talking about, isn't it?"

Reluctantly, the Arabian nodded. "I guess."

"No guessing. It is." One long finger crept up, tapping Quatre's nose and making him huff and wiggle to dislodge it. "You know he'll likely be around even more if he gets his own place too? He'll get lonely and want to hang out, and then we'll be happy to see each other, so there won't be half as much fighting as there is now when he comes back."

"Probably." Grudgingly that was given, but Duo had learn to pick up on Quatre's signals, and the blonde was listening closely now, and caving.

"It'll be better in the long run, and make us all closer." And then, the careful step to what Duo was really wanting. "Maybe you and I should even start thinking about getting our own place. You know, together?"

Quatre turned in his arms like a top, large eyes meeting Duo's in surprise and searching demandingly there. "What?"

He expected such a reaction, and Duo managed to fix the proper look of sheepish shyness on his face, shrugging almost casually as though he was now uncertain… Which, of course, he wasn't. He knew exactly what he wanted, but he also knew people dealt to things when confronted with the things they'd come to expect. "Well… You know." He leaned in, nuzzling his nose to the roundness of one cheek. "It's be kind of nice. A little place that was just ours. Somewhere where you can have full decorating rights and not have to worry about rumbling someone's feathers. Maybe even start that garden you keep talking about… And get a cat? And somewhere I can put up all my posters finally without having to worry about Wufei ripping em down in a fit of rage? And maybe even with a garage so I can consider getting that bike I wanted without worrying about it being stolen? A little place. A you and me spot."

The Arabian stared for a long second, until Duo felt like he'd start squirming under that watchfulness, then an uncertain smile started to creep on his mouth. "Isn't that kind of a big step?"

"Quatre," He gave the boy an honest smile, briefly touching his lips to the corner of that pert mouth, "Aren't we kind of a big thing? I mean… I want to be with you. I have for a while now. And now that I am… I don't have any doubts about where I want this to go."

Duo turned his expression into a puppy-dog look. "Why? Do you?"

When Quatre's eyes widened in surprise and hints of guilt, he knew the battle was mostly over. God forbid his little blonde make anyone feel bad, and he knew it. It got easier and easier to wrangle the other male into whatever was needed. Rather than making him bored, Duo was amazed that each time he felt his love deepen a bit more. It was just another piece of Quatre that he now, gloriously, owned.

"No, of course not! I know I love you, Duo. I love all of you guys. I just don't want to regret this later, so I thought…"

"-You'd give me a chance to back out of it, right?" He smirked when the blonde slowly nodded. "Well, I don't need one, kitten. I just need you. I want us to get our own place."

Before acceptance and joy could even fully blossom on Quatre's pretty face, Duo was facing one of the blonde's many unfounded (in his opinion) worries. "What about Trowa though? He lives here too… And what if he's not ready to get a place all on his own? If he doesn't have the money, or wants to stay here, or with us? Duo, we can't possibly-"

"Quatre," He hushed the boy with another swift kiss. "Let me worry about that, okay? This was just a suggestion for you to think about, not a plan set in stone. I'll mention it to Trowa, and see what he thinks, then we'll talk again, all right? If he's not into it, well… Forget it. We'll work something out later."

Reassured that he wasn't immediately going to be putting his friend out of a home, Quatre gave him a nod. The matter was more or less resolved between them then, as was the fight from earlier forgotten. Duo lingered where he was, wrapped around the beautiful blonde and drinking in that unique scent and warmth to his heart's content, fully confident in the knowledge that within a month, he would have Quatre all to himself in their own place. He'd make sure of it.

It had been too easy to see that Quatre would be the type to crave that kind of closeness in a relationship, that kind of commitment, and after thinking on it for a few weeks, Duo had seen the perks himself. No more competing with the others for attention, no more limits on his personal items and style, no totally strict rules between them. Perhaps best of all, no more middle-of-the-night worries about if one of his other teammates might not have it in them to scoop the blonde out of his hands when he was -so- close to finally having and keeping him.

It had been Heero's mistake, that lack of some sign of devotion, and he'd watched the dense brunette make it time and time again. Watched Quatre's tears flickering into being, and then be blinked away. Seen Heero be forgiven, but never forgotten for those little things. He'd also watched how a single show of it, a card on his birthday, a flash of protectiveness, could make the blonde turn into putty in his hands. Heero hadn't known how to work that, how to twist it and keep his lover satisfied and by his side smiling.

But Duo did.

It would just be Quatre and him then, and who knew what knew closeness could grow between them without any interruptions?


	3. Inside betrayals

"Hey Trowa? Can I talk to you for a minute?" 

The Latin pilot looked up from where he was stretched languorously on their worn but well loved couch, one visible viridian eye blinking at the figure in the doorway. In his lap, a magazine (likely a music one, Duo thought, one of those stuffy ones packed with classical sheets of notes) lay forgotten now, a long finger paused somewhere on a page of script.

Looking at Trowa from his vantage point, Duo could step outside himself and see where one might find him attractive, as he could often do with any of his team though none of them truly drew him; not since he'd figured out what he felt for a certain blonde. Trowa had that often looked for but rarely found tall, dark and handsome thing going for him, while still avoiding being a muscle headed jock. He had the appeal of an athlete, the mind of a scholar, and the looks of someone who could have just started modeling. He was built, with hard muscles under a layer of tan silky skin, but not outrageously so. More like a large sleek cat, and wouldn't Trowa have just loved that comparison?

Duo thought he would of.

That topped off with a pair of what had to be the greenest eyes on the face of the earth, his mysterious silence, and the boy's general shadow-like way of moving, and it was clear why heads turned when Trowa stepped out the door. It was a fact that Duo found irritating now, and further motivated him to step into the room and engage with the waiting male.

Trowa was a seduction waiting to happen, and he wanted himself and Quatre as far away as possible when the bomb that was the brunette's sex appeal finally fell.

He walked -- _slinked_ -- over to the couch and started to drop down onto the end opposite of Trowa's head, causing the other male to jerk his legs back or risk them being squashed under Duo's bony butt. Trowa was still regarding him in silence, his mood half expectant with suspicion (he stilled recalled the earlier looks he'd gotten) laying just under that.

"Quatre and I have been talking."

_No surprise there. When aren't you talking to him? When you're hanging on him, I suppose._ Despite his admittedly bitter thoughts towards the American, Trowa's lips stayed closed and his expression neutral. It really wasn't Duo fault he felt this way, was it? And it was unfair to vocalize such things even if he couldn't help himself from thinking them. Quatre and he… Well, their relationship had remained that protective brotherly one. He'd had chances before Heero and the blonde had hooked up, and again after their stoic friend had paused on. Both times, he'd closed that emotion up within himself, and probably for the best. Duo didn't deserve his distaste now for having the nerve to do something he hadn't. He also didn't deserve it for enjoying the relationship and being protective now, since perhaps he'd be the same way if they switched positions.

But **he** knew he wouldn't act so hostile towards all of the blonde's friend, and his own teammates, and that's where the uncomfortable indecision about his thoughts on Duo lay. It was just easier to stay mute.

Duo took this as a 'please, go ahead', like he usually did. One kind of had to come to their own assumptions when dealing with Trowa.

"It seems he's been playing around with the idea of moving out on his own for a little while now." He started casually, stretching his long arms up over his head before crossing them at the base of his neck.

"Getting a new place for himself, you know, and has been kind of nervous bringing it up because he thought you or Wufei would be upset." Duo laughed, only to then reach up and run a hand through his messy bangs, then lay his hands back down in his lap; the constant motion the American had to maintain almost constantly that really made Trowa feel the differences between them. "Or me, but I guess it started before he and I were a thing. Now he's thinking about a place for us…"

"The thing with Wufei reminded him or something, because he just brought it up to me a bit ago in the kitchen, after you walked out. Seemed kind of excited about it, even if he's a little upset about 'Fei going. Mother hen, and all."

_Give me my Grammy now, I'd like to thank all the little people._ Duo chuckled inwardly, while on the outside, he managed to paste a look of nervous good humor on his face. "I… I'm not so sure, seems like a pretty leap in the relationship, but I think it could work. He's just a little iffy on taking the next step because of you. 'Fraid you'll be mad or depressed or whatever."

Trowa's eye widened, shock clear for a minute in the green depths. Never mind the rest of Duo's talk, his mind immediately sorted through and fixed on the important bit of information he'd been given. "Quatre wants to move out?"

"Yeah." Duo nodded, still smiling, almost gentle and confused now, and within he was congratulating himself. Trowa had his buttons too, and once you knew how to push them… There was little that couldn't be accomplished. "… Kinda cute really, how he puts his own plans on hold for your well being."

_In for the kill, Maxwell my man._ "I told him I don't mind waiting until you figure out your direction in life finally, and he said it's okay -- that he's not in a rush… But he looked kinda, I don't know, sad, I guess."

The shock rippled in forest pools like a heavy rock had been dropped into a small pond, and Duo watched it's troubling effects widen and spread with a well hidden glee. It was like watching a ship sink.

"He lets each of us come and go as we please, and keeps his mouth shut even when it really upsets him, but when he wants to go…" The American shrugged, "It's like he's got invisible chains and we're keeping him prisoner, huh?"

Trowa barely heard this, but he nodded, numb and slow. _I'm slowing him down. Quatre's… Happy now. He's better, and I thought I was here to make sure he was all right, to protect him, but I'm… Hampering him. I can be his friend from anywhere, but here I am keeping him from a new dream and a new life. I've been doing that for… How long? How long has he kept on smiling? How long before he would have grown resentful for me not letting him move on? Has it already started?_

The taller boy rose from the couch, jerkily and without his usual grace, and Duo just stared curiously up at him. "I… Ah, I think I'm going to go upstairs. Thanks, Duo, for telling me."

"Yeah, no prob, Trowa. Take it easy, all right?"

"Okay."

And then he was moving away, crossing the room and moving up the staircase lethargically. Duo stayed behind, and after a moment, picked up the magazine that the other boy had been reading. He looked down at it's pages of music notes and new silver instruments with an expression of boredom, then rolled his eyes and tossed it to the side to reach for the remote. Maybe MTV was on…

xXx

Things, as they should have been expected to and often do, moved quickly from that moment onward. It was only a matter of days before Duo had the self-brought pleasure of sitting back in the kitchen and watching the scene as Trowa came in one day to tell Quatre of a quaint little place he'd found in the city, and of his desire to apply at a small petshop near there. It was miles from the circus, or a zoo, but as he told Quatre, it was a start and perhaps the small business animosity he needed right now.

He was ready, he said in a confident tone that made Duo's lips quirk upwards in the hint of a smile, to start putting his life into some kind of order.

Part of that order was of course making himself move again, get motivated for action, and the best way he could do that, or so he told Quatre, was to sweep the supports out from beneath his feet. It was too easy to be comfortable here with them, and too easy for him just to settle in and forget he still had something waiting for him in the form of a future. So he was going.

Of course he wanted to keep in touch, and let the blonde know just that. It wasn't an end to their friendship, but rather a new development he hoped would make them even closer in the end.

Trowa showed Quatre the little ad for the apartment he wanted, then a flyer for the petshop, and Duo watched from the table as the shaken Arabian nodded and tried to put on a strong face. It was lucky for him that Trowa didn't truly delve into the miserable surprise that appeared in Quatre's eyes, and only dismissed what he did see as a delayed reaction to the freedom finally brought on by his decision.

After Trowa had walked out -- strode quickly from the kitchen really to make sure that his resolve and growing trepidation wouldn't make him turn around and try to back out. He **was** comfortable here, and** had** thought he was doing so well after all. That they all were, with one another -- Duo had stretched and rose from his chair to kindly gather the trembling form of Quatre into his arms.

xXx

"Duooo!" The snuffling wail into his shoulder brought a true wince to the braided boy, a pang of regret not for the situation, but for the depths of reaction it spurred in his little mate. His hand rose of it's own accord to stroke the back of the fluffy golden head. "He's leaving! Now Trowa's going, too!"

"Shh, hey. Calm down, it's okay." He dusted light kisses over what he could of the damp forehead and scrunched together eyebrows. "Quatre, baby, it's all right. He's not going far."

"I don't care if he's only going next door! Don't you get it? Everyone's leaving, we're falling apart! Next we won't see each other for holidays, then the phone calls will stop, and then we'll open the paper one day, and find out one of us died and not even be able to remember more than the name!" Duo listened to the air whistling in and out of Quatre with alarm tickling at the edges of his senses. The boy was truly worked up here, his little hands fisting in the black material of his shirt and the wetness seeping through to first heat, then chill his chest as the air from that trembling mouth cooled it.

"No, Quatre. Come on, look at me." Gently, he placed his hand under the young man's chin and lifted it up, meeting eyes that swam with tears before leaning in and kissing away one of the sticky salt paths over Quatre's cherub round cheeks. It was bitter taste, and a cherished one. "It's not that bad. And it'll never get that bad. None of us, even fifty years from now, will just forget one another. Not after everything we went through together. We'll be ninety, in old age homes, and still be thinking of one another sometimes. Trust me. Wufei will still be calling me a baka then, and Trowa will still remember the way you guys sometimes play together."

Quatre wouldn't be so easily comforted this time though. His whimpering cries stopped, but even as Duo watched, another tear built up in his eyes like a small tidal wave, then overflowed and gleefully made it's trek down, clinging fitfully to his chin before dropping down and making Duo's shirt a shade darker than black.

Finally, he confessed part of the true worry on his shaken mind, and when Quatre did, the American felt part of his heart freeze. "… I think Heero held us together."

"Why would you think that?" It came out soft and somewhat muddled through his suddenly numb lips.

"All of this started when he died… Before then, Wufei didn't need to go to the city for a job, because we had five people and together made enough for rent. And before he died, aside from himself, you guys rarely missed dinner. We had at least four nights a week when we'd all sit together and talk. And you used to plan those silly Friday games, and even if he hated them, he'd still join in. We all **knew** we'd be together then, every week. We'd keep our schedules open to watch TV, and throw popcorn, or to play cards. Now… You don't do them any more."

How was Duo supposed to tell him those Fridays were merely a way to get closer to Quatre, to have an excuse that the others would buy to really hang around the blonde without suspicion? Heero would get bored and stalk off after an hour, and the others never lasted much longer, and then Quatre and he would stay up until three, either sitting on the couch and watching bad movies, or talking, or finishing up some stupid board game. It was those stolen seconds that sometimes made the next day of watching Quatre scamper up to Heero tolerable.

He didn't need those now. He owned the blonde body, mind and soul, and had every right to his time with him. There was no need to set up sharing times with the others any more, nor the desire to.

He was still trying to come up with an acceptable excuse that the Arabian would buy when Quatre continued and saved him the trouble.

"Now Wufei had to leave to get a better job. And Trowa…" The boy took another gasping breath, burrowing closer into Duo's shirt and inhaling the familiar scent as he tried to make his own unwanted tears cease. "Trowa must miss him too. Maybe they didn't talk much, but they used to sit in the room together sometimes for hours, and just walking in you could tell they were comfortable with one another. Now he doesn't have that, and I think he's lonely. I should have paid more attention! I was so upset that I didn't stop to think about anyone but myself, and now looks what's happened!"

By now, it was a well known fact to Duo that when Quatre got into the self-blame mind-frame, little to nothing could be done to pull him out of it. You just had to ride the waves, and then be there afterwards to see what could be found and reassembled.

So he listened as the boy murmured unhappily to himself for a few minutes; listened, and lovingly pet his quivering back and kissed away his rolling tears. When Quatre had gone quiet for a few minutes and the small fingers clutching at the back of his shirt had loosened up, he knew it was okay to again speak up as long as he treaded carefully. Conversation was a minefield now, and certain words could easily send Quatre into a fit of depression that would take hours to work out.

When damply beautiful aqua eyes lifted and peered at him, all but begging for redemption and some form of salvation, Duo gave it to him with a gentle smile of support and a kiss on the corner of his plush mouth. "Trust me, Kitten. Everything's going to turn out just fine. Trowa will stick around somewhere nearby, he'd never just up and leave you. You guys are too close of friends for that. And Wufei will visit on the weekends. In the meantime… We'll get another place and keep busy making it all ours. We'll start looking today, all right?"

He waited, and got the slow nod he'd been wanting, along with a timid mirror of his own smile.

"Just trust me."


	4. Little Black Book

As the pair pushed through small cottage's door with their arms heavily burdened with paper bags of carefully selected cook-free foods (they hadn't yet unpacked the pans yet and it wasn't high on the list of priorities), air motes danced and glittered in the warm light of the setting sun in the living room. Like minuscule fey they seemed, all gold and silver, the air sweet from the flower garden out back and warm with the season change, and even with the room still cluttered with stacked furniture and boxes Quatre thought it was enchanting. 

He had when they'd first seen that tiny black and white photo in the newspaper, and despite Duo trying to tell him to stay calm and be a smart shopper, when they'd arrived at the small country house for the first time with that neatly dressed saleswoman standing under it's doorway and smiling, he'd clamored out of the car and all but lost himself. The flower garden made his eyes huge with plans and appreciation. All of it's perfect little clusters of flowers growing together, and that small white fence that stated so easily 'domestic'. Then that matching gazebo in the back, and the little swinging chairs. He'd wanted it, badly, and didn't want to change a thing. Quatre loved the baby-blue shuttered windows, and adored the sunny lemon yellow kitchen with its left behind checkered curtains. He liked the tiny just-because stone fireplace with it's unexplained chip on the mantel, and had already decided his reading chair would be somewhere before it. The pantry reminded him of a secret playroom, behind that well hidden cabinet look-alike door, with it's single hanging light and trap doors both on the floor and above. They hadn't been in the small root cellar yet, or in the attic which the woman said was little more than a small storage space, but that didn't matter.

There was a stable just a mile down the road, and Quatre wanted to get them horses there to ride when they wanted. And if someone stood up on one of the rocks in the garden out back, they would just barely see the edges of the lily pond with it's mysterious frog and dragonfly residents that would also be theirs. The woman had said that they ought to come back at night and see the fireflies scoot along it's surface, that it was like magic, not to mention the sun setting over the softly rolling grass-covered hills. Quatre thought he'd see it for himself soon enough.

He saw it, and fell in love, and Duo got caught up quickly enough. They left that day knowing it belonged to them.

It took them little more than a week to pack all of their things. Trowa left halfway through that. He'd finished his own fast enough, but when Quatre requested shyly that he stay and please help them pack as well, he'd been helpless to deny him. Of course the whole situation, that so soon Quatre had found a new house and was starting out more or less on his own made Trowa feel a little worse about it. He -had- been a rock in the lovely blonde's road. He made up for it now as he could. Keeping a light attitude wasn't too hard, not with Quatre's constant smiling and gushing about his plans. Staying miserable around a happy Quatre was like trying to deny the sun it's rising. So he helped, and joked around about Quatre disappearing and becoming a hermit out there because he was so in love with the house. Duo laughed with him, and things were okay again between them. He said he was a little worried Quatre would leave him for the house now too, if such a decision came about.

Quatre reassured them both with a bright smile, then plowed ahead with his plans and designs. Duo had been right about that, how quickly he'd want to make the house 'theirs'.

They'd finished the packing of the house that had belong to all five of them at one point, it's walls silent witness to fights, blossoming love, and loss, and had left it behind. Though Quatre had offered to help Trowa settle into his new apartment, the Latin pilot had refused much to Duo's unspoken relief. He wanted time to get used to being on his own, he said, and Quatre had been forced to grudgingly respect that. Though he had made plans to have Trowa over to his own house for a nice lunch just as soon as he was ready.

Now, they were moved into that little house… Mostly. Tonight they'd be staying at a hotel nearby just because of how late it was and how little they'd actually gotten done, but come tomorrow...

Duo stood in the door and watched with a lazy grin as Quatre padded across the box-spotted floor and into the kitchen with his bag. Shortly, the rustling sound and clanging of cans and boxes put away began, and he forced himself to move again after the perky young man.

"Ya think we got enough, Quatre? I mean, only these bags and the -ten- in the car? Are you sure we won't need to go back and buy the grocery store in case an army battalion should drop on by and request dinner?"

The light laugh he got in return from the blonde balancing on the counter on his knees and tucking things away was like music. "Don't tease, Duo! You never know who is going to drop by, or if something will come up. The car might break down sometime, and then where would we be until we got it fixed? Or a storm could hit and-" He paused, pointing down at the bag still in Duo's arms, "-Which reminds me, take those candles and put them on the top right shelf in the pantry? We need to know exactly where they are should the lights go out."

"Yes, master." Chuckling, he pushed his own burden onto the surface besides Quatre and plucked the pair of six-count packages out of it's top before heading to the cabinet-hidden pantry with them. He had to admit Quatre had a point. Ordering a pizza if that happened wouldn't be an option. First off the blonde had a weird sort of attitude towards the greasy circular food in general often making the cutest 'yuk' faces he'd ever seen, and secondly, Duo thought it'd be impossible to find a place that delivered this far out.

"Don't mock me either. And as I was saying, it would be nice to have some easy supplies if that does happen. You know the saleswoman mentioned how sometimes random storms come and stick around in this area, because of the mountain range. They drift in, then stay for days just circling until they dissipate. Besides…" He looked back over his shoulder with a playful smile as Duo returned, "I still haven't learned how to predict your odd cravings, and I'm not into running to the nearest gas station in the middle of the night when you want skittles or some other piece of junk food."

"Hey! I never asked you to do my munchies runs yet, have I? And slims jims are not junk food, they're… Yeah, okay, so they are. So what?"

"It doesn't mean you won't though." The blonde pointed out. "I'm not saying just for that reason either, but if you took off suddenly, I'd be up all night worrying you know, and that's quite a drive away so you'd be giving me plenty of time to do just that."

The worrying comment made Duo slacken the teasing. Though Quatre was still smiling, he understood the pain that was under that casual statement. Up all night, waiting, like he had been for the brunette that was fading into the past finally as a memory. The Arabian was getting better and so much more secure than he had been, but some things still got him worked up. Duo remembered staring in shock that night a few months ago when Trowa came in late and Quatre had launched himself at the taller male, then simultaneously launched right into a near screaming rant. Trowa had just wanted to take a walk in the evening rain, but when Quatre had made his somewhat motherly rounds after he assumed everyone had turned in and found that bed empty, Duo had been shaken awake by a pale faced, wild eyed boy he hadn't encountered since right after Heero's death. Unable to calm him, he'd eventually settled on the living room couch with him, listening to Quatre list every possible morbid thing that he was **sure** had happened to Trowa. Then the door had opened and there was no stopping Quatre's relief or anger, and Trowa had just stared open mouthed as words and weak fists landed.

A snack run, though innocent enough, had the potential to place him in the spot to have Quatre flying at him. Normally, he wouldn't mind that, but that particular circumstance would include with hands curled, eyes teary, and emotions running on a nuclear level. When he thought of it like that, these extreme shopping binges would be a welcome compromise. Whatever they hadn't gotten that he craved would simply have to wait until the next town trip.

"All right, all right. I get it, Kitten."

Quatre stared at him for a second more, perhaps testing the honesty in Duo's eyes and making sure he simply wasn't getting blown off, then nodded to himself and turned back to the food. "Come on up here and help me, Duo. The sun's starting to set, and I'd really like to be off this road and onto the highway before it's totally dark. Until I get used to it or they get streetlights, I don't think I'll try cruising around on it just yet."

"Hun, you piloted a gundam during one of the biggest wars the world has known," He grunted and boosted himself up to join his boyfriend on the counter, offering him the cans he nonetheless quickly pulled out. "I think you can handle driving at night."

"Ha ha, Duo." He rolled his eyes, and with both of them still chuckling they finished with their provision preparations for their move in the next day.

XxXxX

At first, the young blonde had been upset by the fact that Duo wasn't here to finish setting up with him in their new home, but gradually he'd accepted that the other male was right. Early this morning as they were on their way down the road and to the cottage, both prattling on excitedly about which room to start in, Duo's cell phone had rung. He'd gotten a call back for an interview at one of the many jobs he'd put in applications for. The call was from one of the ones Duo had been really hoping for, and one of the few that Quatre admittedly didn't mind since Duo'd still be making it back to the house each and every night. It was a managerial spot in a mechanics shop only a little ways into town. Of course, though, they'd wanted Duo to come in for that interview this afternoon around three, and that was where Quatre couldn't help but start to complain a bit.

It was through much reassurance that if they rushed they could have most of it done by the time that rolled around, (and more than a few guilty nudges that they needed this job if they wanted to stay self sufficient and stay out of the lowering funds Quatre had left from his inheritance) that he finally crumpled and told Duo to go ahead and go, and to come back with good news or he'd be scalped.

Miraculously, they **had** gotten most of it done. They'd cleared the living room in no time at all, less than an hour actually, aside from small things like organizing the movies on the shelves. The TV stand and electronics were quickly placed, the couches moved and then re-moved as they mutually agreed they wanted the windows open to stand before. Lights were put on end tables then turned on to make sure they still worked, and rugs were thrown over the nice hardwood floor to protect bare toes from the morning chills. They left that room with just three boxes left unopened on the loveseat, and they'd get into that when they were all done and finally ready to curl up and just relax in front of a favorite flick.

The bathroom was handled by Duo in a matter of minutes while Quatre finished his peculiar preferences in the kitchen, which were bound to take longer. When he'd finished in that small sunny room, eyeing the clean bath basin and wondering if he'd be able to fit them both in there some future night, the braided pilot didn't risk the wrath of the other boy whom he could hear muttering to himself as he banged pots, but rather slipped outside to deal with the few things that belonged in the shed and garden.

With that done, he'd moved over to one of the swinging seats, tipped his head back, and had watched the sun creep along the afternoon sky with a catlike smile of satisfaction crawling over his lips. It would have taken a lot for the day to have become better for one Duo Maxwell, that was for sure.

It was nearing on two o'clock when his little lover appeared at the half-door that marked the kitchen's exit. He looked hot, but content. Duo scooted over as the young man approached and sat beside him, pushing a can of soda into one of Duo's hands as he nursed delicately at his own. "Bathroom?"

"Done, beautiful. Kitchen?" He raised an eyebrow at the storm cloud that washed over Quatre's face.

"Done… Mostly. I need to rearrange some of the little stuff, but it ought to work. Most of it's in the same places as the other house, so you shouldn't have trouble finding it."

Duo nodded, keeping quiet. Together they watched a fluffy cloud drift overhead and simply enjoyed the natural sounds and smells around them, and one another's company. Quatre tipped his head to rest it on Duo's shoulder, and in return, the American nuzzled at the cherish strands of strawberry smelling silk-formed heaven.

He knew what time it was without asking when Quatre looked down at his slightly dusty watch and fetched a long suffering sigh. "Yeah, I know, blondie. Time for me to scoot."

"Promise you'll hurry back?"

"Of course," He winked, brushing his lips against the graceful swell of Quatre's babyish cheeks, "And if you're real good, I might even bring you something back, if you know what I mean."

"Oh you!" He was pushed off the swing seat, but he was laughing. The flushed face of the other male always made him smile.

"Yeah, yeah, 'oh me' indeed. I was talking take-out, my suspicious little would-be angel." He brushed himself off and started wandering back towards the house. "Call me if anything happens. You've only got the bedroom left, so if you've got that done when I get back, maybe we can eat whatever I bring back out here? Sound good?"

"Mm hm. Bring back Italian if you can find it?"

"Does pizza count?" Smirking at the image of his boyfriend swinging his legs and scowling up at him from beneath feathered bangs like a sulky teen, Duo guessed that was a no, and with a teasing 'we'll see, honey bee' he slipped into the shade of the house and then through it to the car in their new driveway.

As he backed out and turned the car into the road, he lifted one hand in a wave to the blonde who had -- of course -- gotten over his temper to at least come see him off. Quatre leaning on one side of the door and smiling his direction as the sun kissed off his fair skin and hair and made him glow was the image that hung beautifully in Duo's mind as he went off to secure their little piece of paradise.

XxXxX

He bent over the wooden surface again, checking it for scratches carefully before he finally pushed the long dresser flat up against the wall. Huffing at the heavy thing, Quatre turned and rested his lower back against it as he unwound the bandana that had lain his forehead and swabbed his cheeks impatiently. He felt hot and sticky, and tired, but on a good note the bedroom looked wonderful.

Nudging the hems of the area rug with his socking covered feet, he took a second to regain his breath as he peered around. The rug had been first, since things would obviously be resting on it, then he'd had to dive right into the big stuff. They each had their own dresser, horribly huge matching pieces that now made Quatre regret his decision. A pair of end tables still laid near the door. The bed, Duo's, since the American's was the larger out of theirs, lay resting upended against the wall still, and then a neat little line of lamps waiting to be placed and plugged in. Finally came the boxes that crowded the far end of the room. Their clothing, their knickknacks, extra bedding, Duo's random collections, his own radio and it's box of cds… Just looking at the boxes made his head hurt.

But first, the bed. With the dressers out of the way, that could come down. And then the end tables, and then those evilly taunting boxes.

Quatre walked across the room, tossing his bandana over onto the surface he'd been so closely checking a moment before, and stretched up on his tiptoes to reach the edge of the bed frame. With the mattress already balanced on it, he tugged the whole thing down.

He'd intended to just give it a little pull, then hop out of the way and guide it gently down, but the weight along with his own tiredness caught him off guard, and Quatre barely had the time to make a clumsy dive out of the path of the rapidly falling furniture, nearly banging his head against a wall as it crashed down. It slammed against the floor with a creaking metal wail, bouncing in the frame, and then something under it slapped down on the wood a second later.

"Oh… Oh crap. Duo's going to kill me if I broke that stupid thing!" Hardly aware that he was muttering out loud, the blonde pulled himself up and wincing at his sore knee which had caught the majority of his unexpected flight, wandered back over to the crooked bed.

From the side, he thought it looked fine (not that he knew much about beds) aside from being about a foot away from where he'd intended it to be, but that second sound had worried him. It sounded like one of the boards below fell free. So he knelt beside it already trying to think of where to get the fixtures for it, clenching his teeth in frustrated anger and intermingling pain, and dropped his head to the floor to peer beneath it.

"Thank goodness." No boards. No popped springs either, though he wasn't sure the bed had them anyway or if it was one of the new sponge-type ones. The floor rug was a little wrinkled under one of the bed legs and would need to be fixed before it drove him buts, but that was…

As his eyes fixed on that strange little shape where he knew there hadn't been on a minute before, the blonde blinked in surprise, then muttered a choice word that would have had Duo laughing himself silly. He flattened out and wiggled beneath the temperamental bed to retrieve what he thought was part of a board, only to haul it out and find himself instead looking down at a tiny black book.

Sitting up, he turned the age mangled tome over in his hands, gazing between it and the bed uncertainly. It wasn't hard for him to figure out that it had somehow been lodged underneath there, and thus, it belonged to Duo. _Probably a diary, or photo album or something._

He wasn't a snoop though, and so he bent to try to put it back wherever it had fallen from -- to let Duo keep his secrets because he certainly had enough of his own, and didn't everyone? -- but that was when one of the few loose scraps of paper peeking out from between battered pages came loose, and drifted like a snowflake down to the ground beside his other hand.

Even then, he'd have pushed it back in those pages and never have peeked… If not for the fact that that folded piece of plain lined paper looked strangely familiar to him. Indecisively, the blonde froze, looking between the ebony book in one hand and down at that worn out bit on the floor. It was folded childishly into something like a high school note, and did he know this note? Quatre thought he might. He'd never been really good at all the neat origami ones the other students seemed to know, and so his own had always just been perfectly creased first one way, then the other, and then addressed with a name in the center in his usual looping script.

He couldn't see a name where he was looking now, it would be on the other side.

_Did Duo keep a note I wrote him during the war? Which one?_ If it **was** from him, it really wouldn't be a crime to find that much out at least. Maybe even to find out if his sweet boyfriend had been that interested in him even back then, a cute crush he'd been so obvious to.

Smiling and resolved, Quatre reached out and scooped the note up, turning it over in his hand as he absently set the book up on top edge of the bed.

Heero.

His eyes scanned over that name once, without making the connection. Then it slammed home, and his heart instantly filled with that same old ache he'd been blessedly feeling diminish day by day for his first love. Like Heero was there and actually whispering his own name into the shell of the blonde's ear, that scrawled name made him turn cold and brought tears prickling into his aqua eyes.

He didn't even consider what it was doing here, his trembling fingers just pulled apart the once carefully made folds and opened the note again to him.

The lines were his. He remember smiling as he teased the stoic brunette that he'd somehow made his through the words written here, daring him to scold him for caring. For touching his precious things. His eyes, though blurred now with tears he didn't feel pooling and streaking down his cheeks, moved over each one and it made him sniffle in remembering his innocent declarations of devotion. Something bordering on obsession, with the way Heero had always been the first thing in his mind when he woke up and the last when he went to bed, and had often haunted his dreams as well. Thinking now, how he'd felt the urge to write such a thing, before his lover had even left the house.

How he'd signed it 'your Quatre' and had never felt more honest about anything.

Oh, it hurt still, like the wound was reopening and bleeding fresh onto his new life. It hurt enough that the sounds outside didn't make sense to him, the distant thud of a car door.

Heero hadn't been mad though, he'd been oddly touched. He'd thank him for it with soft kisses when he'd come home, across his face and closed eyes and cheeks, making made him feel delirious. His normally distant boyfriend liked it enough to take it with him everywhere, keeping it tucked deep in his wallet, and when he'd-

Quatre stopped, body shivering in the warm air of the bedroom as though winter was rushing upon him hungrily. I_ cried for this note once, because like most of Heero's things in his wallet, it was gone. Like the tickets to the movie we saw on our first date, such an oddly sweet thing for him to have kept. It was **always** with him, so it was gone and… And now it's here? How did Duo get this note? Heero never would have dropped it, or given it up, he-_

"Oh kitten." Quatre jumped and let out a timid shriek as that dull emotionless voice spoke up behind him. "You've been naughty."


	5. The truth bleeds out

When Quatre woke up from the overwhelming darkness that had threatened his life and sanity for a second time, he noted absently that it was easier. Things, even violent tremors that rocked someone's world apart and made the heart feel as though it was breaking within the chest, always got easier with time and practice. He was just mildly mortified to realize it was the same case with something like this. 

He was aware that he was somewhere cool, and that his body felt comfortable, if not stiff. Like it was lying on a cloud. There was the soft smell of something floral nearby and he thought it might have been lavender, like the shampoo his lover insisted on using even when they had to drive into the next town to get it. Behind that scent though, was the longer inhabited odor of old bricks and dust. In his mind, it resembled a library that had fallen into disuse, with spider webs now clinging between old tomes and window streaked with grime. Something was creaking, back and forth in a pendulum-like pattern. It would have been comforting if not for the throbbing ache coming from his skull and the spike of discomfort each 'creeeak' sent rushing.

Groaning as the pain sank it's roots more firmly into his awareness, he struggled to lift eyelids that seemed to have gained considerable weight, and at first saw nothing but a blackness so solid he wasn't sure he'd accomplished the task. Then gradually, shapes began to form.

Most noticeably was the faint outline of yellow light about him, in a weird square pattern that he couldn't remember seeing before. It was so perfectly formed, with only little trendles creeping off of it. It took him a long time to understand he was looking at light shining through floorboards, and that the square was a door or sorts. A small one, more commonly known as a trap door.

_Did I fall? Did I trip going into the basement? I told Trowa to fix the light last week…_

But their house hadn't had a trap door leading into the basement, which really only held yard supplies and cleaning tools, and the occasional bit of broken furniture. That house had a regular door, and then a descending stairwell. Not the ladder he was finally seeing leading down from that small opening. Whoever heard of a ladder in a basement anyway? The effort it would take to put anything down there would have been ridiculous.

So if not their house, then where?

He laid in the dark staring up at that shape of light and it's slowly revealing ladder for a few minutes, trying to get his head to stop aching, trying to make sense of the throbbing in his body. His sticky body.

Now that was interesting. Quatre frowned, clenching and unclenching one hand and noting the gritty feel along his palm, the sweat that made his stomach feel like someone had been playing with honey of him. He's been doing something strenuous…

The exact moment that things started to become clear for him was made obvious by the sharp gasp that rang out in the cottage's basement, like the last breath of innocence being explained before cruel fate decided to point out the truth.

It was not to Duo that his mind went, not immediately, but rather back to the tragic sense of loss he'd again felt while sitting in the middle of the wooden floor above, feeling the sun warmed air press stiflingly on his face as he'd unfolded the old note and read lines he'd placed there in better times. That memory stung worse than anything down here did, and so it was on that that he fixed as he blinked teary eyes blindly. It was like being loved and hurt by Heero all over again. It had been all of his regret and remorse unburied and thrust at him… And it hadn't been bad. Just to remember how happy he had been even in the midst of feeling that tidal wave of emotion had been good, with it's own bitter sweet taste.

That taste had turned sour though, right before… Before something caused this lapse in consciousness.

_Heero…_

That scent of lavender crept into his nose again, almost cloying as it over washed the mild stench of dust and mildew, and the blonde wrinkled his nose and turned his head to the side to escape it.  
_Creeeeak. Groan. Creeak._

The smell, that noise. They kept him from vanishing into his mind to sort out anything. He turned back towards the flowery breeze and opened reddened eyes.

_Duo…?_

The redhead sat in an old rocking chair a few feet away, head down and arms folded tightly across his stomach. His feet pushed off the ground silently and caused the chair to let out it low cry again, but nothing else moved except for a few messy strands of hair that had come loose from the teen's usual braid and now floated in clumps around his face.

As his eyes grew more accustomed, Quatre could pick out the splotches of dirt on Duo's black pants, like his friend had been wrestling outside.

_That's just like him. Wufei will kill him if he got any in the house._ His dry lips curled up into a small, tired smile, his voice sounding rusty to his own ears and driving another wedge of pain into his core.

"Duo? You should have-"

All reasonable thought left him, as did words, when his friend and lover's head lifted.

Duo's face was as empty as a doll's, his normally lively and glittering purple eyes now held the dull, dusty quality of a pair of marbles. His lips were a slack line of colorless flesh beneath his nose, his cheeks and forehead deathly pale and near glowing in the darkness. It was the way those eyes moved over his face, like a lizard on a wall watching the world creep along, that made everything come into bitter focus.

_It was in Heero's wallet. It was always in Heero's wallet, and Duo has it now. Duo has it, because Duo-_

"You killed him."

The soft accusation fell from his lips blandly. It was little more than a whisper, but Quatre thought it sounded like an echoing shout between them. It was the sound of guillotines dropping. Of a judge's hammer slamming into place. It was Romeo's hand releasing the poison vial so it could crash and break on the floor, and then Juliet's scream of anguish that rippled through the halls of the dead.

It was a gunshot.

Right between a pair of beautiful cobalt blue eyes.

Duo didn't react. He just lifted his feet, then lowered them, and that chair let out another moody cry. His eyes picked over Quatre's dirt-spotted features without recognition, over his quivering bottom lip and over the line of dried blood that had hours ago trailed from the back of his head and down the pale curves of Quatre's swanlike throat. That had likely happened when he sat upstairs with the unconscious Arabian in his arms, trying to slow the bleeding from his lacerated scalp and crying silently as he stared at the wet and red, the accusing, edge of the radio. His impromptu weapon. Grabbed in a moment of shock and it had been too late to turn back from the moment he had opened his car door.

"YOU KILLED HIM! **YOU** KILLED HEERO!"

He jumped as that hoarse shriek cut through the air.

Something at last blossomed in Duo's eyes, some awareness that had formerly retreated into the putrid corners of his mind. They narrowed coolly as they settled on the sobbing shape of Quatre. He looked just like some damsel in a movie, waiting for her rescuer.

The wrists that lay bruised in their silver cuffs were bruised with lilacs of color, thin and frail as they turned in the restraints weakly. His little hands with those perfect nails opening and closed like something breathing it's last. His platinum hair lay around him in upset clumps, still so pretty even with the dried maroon streaking it near the back. His tears swelled over his closed lashes, then pooled in the crinkled corners and ran down cheeks, leaving abused trails in the dust like the shining paths of snails. His lips, though quivering in misery and cut from either his teeth or the rough trip the radio have given him to the floor, were like two loving carnations. Their color was fair as that of a doll's, shaped so full and-

"Heero!" It was a wail. Something that hurt the eardrums and made the eyes water. "You killed Heero! You t-took him away! How could you!"

And those lips were -STILL- calling that asshole's name.

_Selfish little brat. Why do I love you?_ He'd given Quatre everything. His friendship, his love, his sanity, and finally whatever innocence he'd had left after that war, and he was still calling for that cold son of a bitch who had never been able to give him any of that. Duo had been there when he was needed, had wiped away tears after their fights and had held Quatre close when the nightmares were too much. He'd protected him in battle, and from himself when those uncomfortable times arose. He'd picked him up and implanted him in a new life when that was what Quatre had needed, and this couldn't really be happening, now could it?

In answer to the incredulous question in Duo's mind, Quatre let out a little whimper, and though his lips moved silently, Duo could pick that hated name off of them. And why not? Wasn't it a name that had never really left the billboard in his mind?

He stood up from his chair, legs shaking and mouth sickening dry. Quatre heard the rocking chair hit against the floor one more time and stop, and those swollen aqua orbs opened and fixed on Duo as he moved towards him.

"I'll never be enough for you, will I? Nothing I do, who I am…"

The blonde stared up at him like a fish, mouth opening and closing with faint hitching noises and the breath escaping him like the building whistle of a kettle.

Duo answered himself as he stepped carefully over his boyfriend and grabbed hold of the ladder. "No. I won't. You're always going to cry for him. It'll always be his face you see above him when we fuck, and his lips when we kiss too, huh, Kitten? You're always going to be daydreaming about his fist slamming into your cheek when I'm hugging you, and that makes me sick."

He started up, hand over hand . Quatre had to wince his eyes shut when Duo pushed open the trapdoor and light flooded down him. When he at last managed to coax them back open, Duo was out of the basement, knelt on the floor of the pantry and looking down at him in a way that suggested his blankness was creeping back in.

"I love you, Quatre. I think I love you when I first saw you, and when we fought together."

He swallowed past his aching throat, "D-duo… Please…"

"And I love you now."

Duo looked sad as he lowered the door closed, watching the bar of light slide across Quatre's frantic features before he could see him no more.

XxXxX

He was almost too late.

He'd gone upstairs to wash himself off and get supplies. His body was working on auto, piloted by reason rather then actual brain power, as he splashed water over his face and started tucking back loose strands of chestnut and gold, and then as he opened the medical cabinet. It was into Quatre's traveling bag that he scooped handful after handful of pill bottles. More items to back up the assortment of drugs and bathroom supplies that had rested in that pale blue container. Miscellaneous medicines that they all had commonly at one point, when it had been necessary to tend to their own battle wounds.

Now, most of his own used up and in a state of disuse, the case he'd used scratched and filled with old magazines and other trash and the medicines scattered to the four winds, but he knew Quatre and bet that if anyone's was updated at least somewhat regularly, it would be the Arabian's.

He took a moment to stop in the bedroom and push the bed back where it belonged, then another few to thoroughly wipe the blood from the black exterior of the boom box, his face curiously black as his hand slid the rag back and forth over the hard plastic. He may as well have been washing windows. Then Duo dropped onto the bed, pawing almost blindly through the contents of the bag he'd just prepared.

A pad of cotton gauzing was set aside, along with the bottle of chloroform, it's plastic seal still in place. If he hadn't been so far from his usual demeanor, Duo would have laughed. The blonde had probably bought this thinking it would be 'kinder' than knocking some poor sap on the back of his head with a gun. It was just like him. A moment later, the sinister shape of a syringe joined it, and then after Duo had blandly scanned the label, a small clear bottle.

Morphine.

It would have to do for now. Later, there would be time enough for proper shopping. To find something safer to-

_Love him. To love him and keep him. He doesn't know what's good for him! Doesn't know what he wants! He'll never understand how much I always wanted to-_

- keep him calm and agreeable. Maybe some proper bedding too, and some more comfortable restraints, so that Quatre wouldn't hurt himself.

It was easy for Duo to feel no guilt as he inserted the sharp tip of the needle through the tin lidding of the morphine bottle and began to fill it, so long as he kept that 'truth' in front of him. He was hurt now, but this was still for Quatre's own good. He needed to take care of Quatre, just like he had after Heero's murder - _accident_ - when Quatre hadn't been well enough to fend for himself or to think. He'd been there for him then, and had helped even when Quatre was furious and resentful to all of them for it, and he'd be there for him now.

He tapped the needle carefully and checked for bubbles, then stored away the remaining with a cold mental note to put it in the fridge later. It was going to be a lot of work, with all the medicine he'd need to get and the safe-guarding of the basement he'd have to do, but it would be worth it when Quatre was happy and smiling again.

He'd left the bag on the kitchen counter when he'd gone back down stairs, taking only the syringe in one pocket and the bottle of chloroform in the other, and a cloth already damp with the chemicals in his hand.

When he opened the door and saw the shaky pale hands trying to support Quatre as he boosted himself out of the trapdoor, it was his instincts that saved him.

Instincts, that perhaps, Heero would have been proud of.

Quatre lifted his head and flicked sweat sticky blonde bangs out of his glossy aqua eyes in time to see a hand dart forward. He was dragged up and out by the collar of his shirt, knee banging painfully into the flooring edge, and distantly, as the breath he'd been holding rushed out of him in a gasp, he heard one of the buttons on his shirt tear off.

The cloth descended.

He knew the smell, and fought it with an aimed punch at the neutral face of his lover. It was a face he knew almost as well as his own… But the limb that was already feeling heavy from that first breath of that toxin did little more than rise and seemingly caress Duo's cheek, then slipped away as he watched helpless with glazing eyes.

As Quatre sank down against Duo's chest and was enveloped in a pair of arms like clinging trendles of ivy, the last things he was aware of was the sharp sting of something sliding into his neck, and then the press of cool lips to the already numbing skin. A kiss; the proper chariot to send him off into the hungry oblivion that flowed like a river through his mind.

And the far away sound of a button bouncing down the many rungs of a ladder, to an darkness that was more reality than any one person should know.


	6. Dark Carnival

"Nope, sorry, he's out." 

On his end, Trowa resisted the urge to sigh. This was the third time this week that he'd called, and the third time he'd missed Quatre. It was all just circumstance, of course, but it was hard to ignore the human stirrings of paranoia that made him think he was being avoided.

"Any idea when he'll be in, Duo?"

"Not really. Since we moved, he was quick to do his usual thing and explore and make friends with the neighbors, you know? He's joined like nine community events on top of work, so it's kinda hard to predict. I thought he'd be in at like eight yesterday, and do you know what time he came creeping in?"

Trowa rolled his eyes, "No, what time?"

"Eleven! Can you believe it? Apparently the library club he's in now decided to go out for drinks! Ain't that great? Quatre out with a bunch of bored housewives at the bar gossiping!" Duo laughed, the sound tinny through the line as it reached his ear. "I tell you, if I weren't so sure he and I were serious, I'd be sniffing his collars for perfume to see if those broads aren't going for him."

"Right, well, if you see him before it's too late-"

He was cut off by Duo's perky response. "Yeah, yeah, got it, buddy. I'll give him the message."

"Thanks. Bye, Duo, have a good night."

"You too, buddy! Talk to you soon and hope the new apartment's working out!"

Trowa hung up softly, looking at the phone before he turned to look around at the apartment in question. Boxes were strewn everywhere, some pulled open and their contents spilled out like innards, others just ignored. He should have been moved in last week, but every time he started, he'd come across something or just start thinking and get discouraged. The tiny place with it's one bedroom and it's kitchen/dining room/living room just didn't feel welcoming. It was his new home, and yet he wasn't trying to make it feel more accepting.

It was all junk, after all. The books he stepped over were nice enough, but they wouldn't make this feel place feel right. Neither would the cds. It was just material items that felt like just that at the moment, and even with it unpacked, these rooms would be cold and unfriendly.

He moved into his bedroom and peeled of his turtleneck, tossing it into one corner as he dropped onto the mattress that lay on the floor. A mess. His room was never this bad at the other house, but then again, there had been other people to complain or keep happy, and cleaning had been instinctive there. Part of the peace they had worked together to maintain. He wasn't in denial; he knew it was those very people and their absences now that made this place seem desolate.

Trowa was lonely.

And disgusted by it. He groaned and rolled over to his side. Any day there and he'd be smelling Quatre's cooking, hearing Wufei and Duo squabble somewhere about something, and listening for the sound of Heero's fingers racing over his keyboard. Now Quatre was out with old women miles away, Wufei was in the city working in a stuffy office building, and Duo was home alone in another town and willing to talk to even him for company. And Heero… Well, it was better for him not to think of his state. It was too morbid to wonder if the worms had started in on Heero. He had been a friend, a confident, and a teammate. Trowa would not delve into such thoughts and taint the images he had of the boy.

Was everyone else happy? Or were they miserable like him? He couldn't say. Quatre had sounded thrilled when they'd spoken just before the move, excited, but he had talked to him since. Duo, therefore, had also been ecstatic. Why not? He had everything he wanted. Wufei was grudging as usual, but even he had spoken excitedly of his new projects in the city and of the design of his new place, and in lengths (much to Trowa's horror) of each and every piece of exotic oriental furniture he had picked up or ordered. It was a one sided conversation. He'd been feeling the aches of loneliness even then and so had listened attentively if only to hear a familiar voice. It felt like happiness, from Wufei at least. So why couldn't he move on?

XxXxX

Duo hung up the phone, and the jubilant smile that had been in place all throughout the call faded away into blankness. He untangled his fingers from the curling cord and was careful to step out of it's loops on the floor as he moved over to the kitchen door.

He listened.

Nothing. Down below, in the room he'd set up (and very well to give himself credit), Quatre slept on. He knew it was bad to keep Quatre drugged so consistently. It made giving him vitamins and feeding him difficult, but more and more, if felt dangerous to leave the blonde awake. There was the off chance of a car coming by, or mail, or even someone needing to use the phone, and Quatre had already shown himself more than willing enough to scream.

Why couldn't he just understand?

Duo sighed as he recalled his countless attempts to patch over this rocky spot with his lover. He'd sat in that chair for hours, or beside the bed, trying to pet soft platinum locks on a boy who fought to edge away from him. He tried to explain what had happened last year, and why, and how it was the reason they could be so happy now, but Quatre was… Being difficult.

The Arabian would stare at him with dull glassy eyes, accusing him again and again and making Duo feel angry. He wouldn't even try to see things for what they really were. He wouldn't speak much any more, and when he did, it was just to reiterate that same nonsense about Heero's death… Or to scream.

He'd grown to hate the harsh sounds coming from the teen. Each time those lips parted to release one, Duo felt like it was digging straight into his brain, causing bleeding deep within, and the blood was growing poisoned. Last time, he'd done something bad, something that made him cry even now to remember it. He loved Quatre, with all his heart, but two days ago when he'd let the drugs where off to start feeding the blonde (Quatre was looking too thin, and pale and it worried him so he'd had no choice), the blonde had started these siren-like shrieks. At him. Calling him a killer. It felt like the world was crushing in on him with those harsh rising tones.

He'd had to make it stop, and before he'd known what he was doing, he was looking down at the pillow he'd pressed over his lover's face and feeling Quatre's kicking limbs beneath him slow.

Duo stopped in time, and had fled up the ladder with Quatre's choking gasps chasing behind him.

Quatre was okay, he'd seen that the next day when he managed to drag himself out of bed and moved to look down from the pantry trap door, but he seemed less somehow. He hadn't struggled when Duo had crept down with the needle. Quatre just stared at him, crying a seemingly endless stream of tears.

He hadn't talked since then, but Duo knew that he would. When he did, it would probably be an apology too, because maybe it had been enough to shake Quatre out of this stupid self pity. It didn't make that slip right, but at least something good could come of it. Duo would be more careful too. When the situation started to feel hopeless again, he'd just leave the blonde for the day and sit upstairs in there room, watching the light play on the wall above the bed. When Quatre did snap out of it, he thought they'd go out shopping, and pick the perfect picture to hang right there. One that would glow when the sun set.

It was time to check on him again, though. Still too soon for that understanding, he knew, but he couldn't neglect his boyfriend's care any more. He'd helped Quatre through rough times before, and he'd help with this too.

Duo moved over to the fridge, opening it and selecting another medicinal bottle from the growing supply he'd started on it's shelves, and then moving to a drawer to pick up a clean needle. If he didn't drug him, Quatre might work himself up enough to sick up his meal again, and that simply wouldn't do.

When those were safe in pocket, he began making his love another lunch. By the time the soup on the stove was bubbling, Duo was humming to himself and thinking of a trip he wanted them to take next year. Quatre would look gorgeous stretched out on a beach chair in the sun.

XxXxX

"Trowa."

He'd gotten desperate, and even the neutral tone of greeting from the oriental man was appealing to his startlingly socially starved brain. Who could believe he'd gotten so used to that silly mock-family that he had craved this?

"Hi Wufei.

"What's going on? Why did you call?"

Brief as usual, Trowa didn't mind Wufei's bluntness. He didn't want meaningless chatter either. He just… _I miss them. I should have been the most likely to adapt to this, and I miss them. All of them. Duo would laugh himself sick if he knew._

If he was feeling this, then surely one of the other's was too?

"Nothing. I just wanted to check in with you. You mentioned that new couch last week, and I wondered if it had come in?"

"You called to ask about my couch?"

Trowa winced at Wufei's disbelieving repeat. "Yes."

"Trowa…" He heard the sigh carried across the miles. "Why don't you just go and visit them? You'll run into him at the house eventually, you know? And in the mean time, you and Maxwell can annoy each other to your hearts' content."

He couldn't help but snicker ruefully. "Is it that obvious?"

"You said you'd called about my furniture, and you -have- to ask? Your shields are breaking apart. Just visit them. You'll feel better knowing they've settled in and reestablishing your ties, and then maybe you can call me when you've actually got something to say."

"Sorry."

"Don't be, Trowa." Another soft sigh, then in a softer voice, "And whatever you do hear, tell me, all right?"

Not much, but enough. He wasn't the only one feeling pangs of this, but Wufei was slightly better at distracting himself from it. It felt absurdly nice to have that familiarity with someone.

"I will. Thanks, Wufei."

"You're welcome. I'm serious though, just drop by. Duo will love it, especially if you bring him some of that american junk food you know Quatre disapproves of. Make whatever excuse you want, but don't procrastinate."

The sound of the disconnect was distant as the Latin ex-pilot considered. He could do that. Just pack a bag, and… And say he was on his way through town, to check out some merchandize for his boss. Or even to pick up some newly delivered animals. And he'd wanted to stop in and say hi. Duo would probably invite him in before he'd even gotten the story out, and they could talk. Then sometime, Quatre would have to come back, and he could watch and make sure that his best friend was all right.

Duo was long over whatever jealousy and worry he'd felt about Trowa and his interest in Quatre, and it would be fine. He could clear his mind of this worry, and start on the right foot knowing not much had changed.

He moved into his room with lighter steps, laying his backpack on the bed and tossing clothing into a pile next to it.

XxXxX

"Hey, darling. How are you feeling today?"

Duo set the bag down on the surface of the forgotten and lopsided coffee table in one corner of the cellar, and began pulling out sealed tubberware containers. He didn't really expect an answer, but was still disappointed when he didn't get one. Looking back over his shoulder as he arranged Quatre's meal revealed that the blonde had turned his head the other way again, as if the sight of Duo sickened him.

"You could at least try, you know?" The redhead snapped tiredly, as he stood and grunted at his popping knees before making his way over with the still softly steaming bowl and a soup. "I brought you lunch. Your favorite too, even though you know I hate the smell of clam chowder. Can't you at least give me a smile?"

Nothing. He could see the side of the Arabian's profile before he sank to his knees on the old mattress, and he was crying again, damn it. If there was anything Quatre could do now, it was that.

Duo clicked his tongue as he set the bowl aside and rolled the smaller male's frame over onto his back, mindful of the restrains on his wrists and the chain that stretched from them to the metal flooring that held the ladder in place. Simple. He could have picked it in half a second himself. Quatre wasn't that good at that though, and the drugs didn't hurt.

No struggle as Quatre's body slumped into place. Duo carefully started propping him up on the pillow, then considerately wiped away those tears. They'd soaked his collar again, and the dirt there was thicker. He'd have to change the blonde before too long. Actually…

"I bet I know what's wrong, Kitten… You feel nasty, don't you? In those clothes? Time to get you a new pair again, huh? All right. Lunch can wait. I'll get those off you first and give you your sponge bath, then we'll get you tucked in and see if that's better, okay?"

He smiled strongly at the slow blink the other boy gave him. "We'll have you tidied up in no time."

It was hard to ignore the way Quatre didn't move as he undid the buttons on the other's faded pink shirt, not even when he was lifted up to it could be peeled off and tossed to the side. He let Duo lay him back down without a sound, then start in on his pants. No belt, because the American had forgotten it last time he'd give him a bath a few days ago. Which was fine, in Duo's opinion. _Damned thing always was a pain whenever we were starting to get frisky anyway._

Smirking, he remembered the time he'd had so much trouble with it he'd threatened to spank Quatre with it if he didn't get it off himself in the next twenty seconds and then how the blonde had hustled. That's been at that amusement park, behind one of rides.

"Hey babe?" He pulled the pants off Quatre's pale legs and flung them to lay over the shirt, then let his hand slowly travel up the outside of one calf and to the curve of a thigh. "Remember that time at Fun Land, after I won you that big blue bear? Behind the Kamikazi?"

He thought he saw some reaction there. A little twitch of Quatre's lips.

"You tasted like cotton candy. God, I wanted you **so** bad…" He slipped his fingers up under the hem of the blue silk boxers, blind to the way they hung loose around his waist, and were stained from his own lack of attention. Cool fingers brushed the side of warm but limp flesh, and then Quatre was moving. His eyes widened, dazed and wet, and rolled to Duo's face.

_Seeing me. He's seeing me again. Waking up. Good._ Duo smiled, bending to hover over Quatre's chest as he lowered his mouth and lightly kissed the hallows under his ribs, murmuring, "I thought I'd go mad with you rubbing up against me like that. Never been one for teasing, but shit, Quatre, you were incrediable…"

Duo moaned softly, remembering the smell of the fry bread and Quatre's laughter as they rode the rides, clinging to him in terror and still laughing because everything would be okay. Duo was there and would protect him, just like he would now. He could perfectly recall the way all the lights they'd passed had lit Quatre's hair like a rainbow, and how that blue bear had made him look like a kid. Like the sweetest piece of jailbait the world had seen, and how Duo'd thought he'd just about come in his pants every time the blonde smirked at him that night. They'd fumbled behind that low mesh guarding the ride with it's screaming passangers, and when Quatre'd gripped him through the rough material of his pants, he thought it was heaven even with the noise and smoky smell and little kids running everywhere.

He pushed Quatre's boxers down as he fumbled with his own pants, impatiently shoving both layers down at once and toeing off his shoes as well. He stretched out over that cool and shaking body as he nibbled at the sallow skin covering Quatre's collar bone, licking at it and tasting not the salty terror that was there, but sugar and Quatre's excitement that night. They couldn't stop touching each other. Not even on the car ride home. He'd almost crashed three times, and Quatre was still laughing when they got in the door and barely remembered to shut it. They'd made love on the carpet there, and had whispered to each other about being quiet lest the others upstairs hear.

They'd laughed together, breathless and in the dark, and then they'd panted as they rode each other's passion.

Quatre whimpered as Duo's hands pushed his legs apart, trying to close them in spite of the drugs, but the redhead didn't hear it as he started to suck lightly on one of the other boy's dusky rose nipples. Locked inside by shock, Quatre felt the disgust and terror wash through him like liquid ice, and he cried mutely as Duo shoved two fingers into him and started twisting them around.

_Scream. Just scream. Duo will hear that. He'll stop. He… He doesn't know what he's like right now. Wake him up._

But he couldn't. His throat closed and not even another whimper made it out as the redhead pulled his fingers out, and then positioned himself. He was smiling, soft and almost sweet, remembering, as he pushed into Quatre, tearing and bruising. He was smiling… And to him, Quatre was too. He was looking up at him with those aqua eyes and that sweet, knowing expression, and they were laughing again as they moved together.

The pain, red and hateful and blinding, was enough, and Quatre found the power to scream. He screamed until he choked on blood from the aggravated flesh. He screamed and his hands curled into claws and cut into his palms. He shook his head back and forth, because this couldn't happen, and he screamed, and screamed, and screamed.

But even his loudest cry of misery and betrayal wasn't enough to overrun the sounds of the carnival and crowds in Duo's mind. They were going on the ferris wheel again, Quatre pulling at his hand and looking back over one shoulder with that smug smile, and Duo just knew he'd get kissed at the top one more time…


	7. Addiction and Devotion

Quaint.

It was the perfect word for that tiny cottage nestled in it's garden and surrounded by flowing willow trees. Cut from faerie tale where unicorns would pass in the twilight, where princes always found their princesses and good prevailed no matter what.

Yet within it's dark stomach, suffering continued in ways that would send those mystical light dwellers fleeing with horrified mouths agape.

Quatre thought he was dying, and really he wasn't too far off. There was still many days he was sure he could tough it out, fight, and yet… His skin felt loose on his body, and moving built waves of queasiness in him that he couldn't always contain. Bugs crawled on the filthy mattress beside him and there was no way to shoo them, not even when they found him and picked at the waste that lay beneath him, pinching his skin as they sought out their disgusting meals. Duo didn't always come any more each day, which was both blessing and curse.

Hunger was constant. A grinding low in his stomach like a furious beast. Thirst was worse. The sound of his tongue running over his cracked lips made his skin crawl. When he mustered the strength to lift his head and look down at himself, he saw the way his stomach sunk in, and witnessed the trembling of his legs.

When Duo did come, he was aware of none of these things, since he would undoubtedly get pumped full of drugs… Quatre loathed to admit it, but when his eyes adjusted to the dark around him and shadows were everywhere and the scurrying of rodents was prominent, even more so then the constant aching stiffness, he craved those drugs and the oblivion they gave. More so than craved, he thought he might be addicted. Once he'd stopped fighting Duo and the needles, they were peaceful and almost dangerously sensible to him.

Morphine. The word would have had him shaking his head and clicking his tongue in disgust just weeks ago, and now it was an angel with wings of mercy.

It made him all too aware of his state, at least when pain was strong enough to clear his mind and before desperation again numbed it. It panicked him. The time for escape was past though… Unless he could convince Duo to undo him, he no longer had the strength, and so far all attempts to ask the redhead about such things had brought about a worrisome blank look, and then Duo leaving sometimes before he gave drugs, or food. Sometimes he wouldn't come back until the next evening, and by then Quatre swore he could feel the teeth in the back of his head singing with pain and need. His stomach felt more than devoid of food those nights, it felt like outer space itself, just one empty vacuum. He would hear Duo upstairs, moving around, and yet he wasn't at the point yet where he would beg the American to come down and tend to him with his needles and strange absent touches. Not since Duo's last black out.

Below the world as most people knew it, Quatre's throat seized up in a gag as he remembered the dead press of Duo's weight on him.

XxXxX

That Duo was still up to his usual 'grin and hide it' games wasn't apparent until the exact moment he opened the front door and stared at the figure who stood beyond.

There was only one second's worth of pause as his violet eyes roved over the tall form there before recognition and delight flooded that face and brought it to life, his cheery voice bursting forth as usual as he stepped out of the house and arms enveloped Trowa's body. "Hey! Tro buddy!"

One second. It was enough to make Trowa doubt himself, before he had an armful of grinning redhead. He stumbled back from it, then chuckled softly and righted Duo before him.

"Hello Duo. I hope this isn't too forward, but…"

"Forward? Not at all! Hell, I woulda invited you before now, but you know how it is trying to get Quatre to take some time off, and the house is still not all unpacked."

The Latin was relieved to hear he wasn't the only one who had issues with that. "It's all right. I more than understand. I just finally thought it was time I saw your new place, and decided I'd at least try to drop in and say hello."

"That fine by me!" Duo flashed him that ever-constant smile, and Trowa found himself happy he'd taken Wufei's blunt suggestion, despite his own holdups. "Just… Uh…"

Duo looked behind him at the partially open front door, tapping his lower lip. "Quatre'd kill me if I let you in without first picking up some of my empty cans and putting that damned stack of dishes away. Think I can convince you to just give me ten minutes to dash in and straighten up before I give you the tour?"

Trowa shook his head, smiling faintly himself though he felt a pang of disappointment. "Not at all. I take it Quatre's not here, then…?"

"Nah. He's probably out to dinner with his coworkers. He's kind of made it a habit…" Duo shrugged a little as he moved back towards the door, giving Trowa a wink over his shoulder. "Not that I mind. He always brings me these little boxes from wherever he goes. Doggy-bags, I guess. Until I'd tried a few, Trowa, I tell you I would have been insulted, now I practically wait by the door each night wagging my tail."

Another soft laugh from the tall brunette, then Duo was vanishing into the cottage after lifting a finger to him to ask for just a minute. Trowa nodded, then moved back over to his vehicle, leaning against the warmed metal as he stared at the scene before him. It wasn't hard to imagine Quatre getting attached to this house. He could almost see the blonde kneeling down besides one of the beds of flowers now, with a big sunhat lop-sided on his head and a satisfied smile on his face. Hard to believe his sensitive little friend didn't even have time to eat with his lover now.

When the door closed, Duo's face dropped, eyes narrowed in suspicion as they moved over the room before him. Cans? Yeah, there were a few of those… And one bigger thing to take care of.

_Fucking Trowa. Nosy son of a bitch. Always knew you had it out for my man, you cheap slut. 'Just dropping by', my ass. You missed my boyfriend, didn't cha? Wanted to see if there was any room to slip in now, huh?_ He stalked away from the door and towards the kitchen, the grin taking over his mouth now cold and sharklike. "Well, there ain't. We're closer than ever, Tro."

His fingers were harsh, jerky, as they pulled open the drawer and withdrew a needle. He almost broke the tip when he yanked off the plastic guard, clenching it between his teeth as the fridge was pulled open and one of his dwindling bottles was selected from the shelf. It wouldn't do to have Quatre making noise while Trowa visited. If he heard any of Quatre's reluctant noises the Latin might feel the need to butt in on the healing the two of them were doing for their relationship.

When he jerked open the trap door, Quatre's turned his face away from the light above with a pained expression, like a mole being exposed to day by a cruel hoe turning the soil. His eyes still weren't adjusted by the time the redhead had gotten down the ladder and was already manhandling him, pulling down his rumpled collar and baring his dirt stained neck.

The sting of the needle sliding into his bruised flesh made him gasp. Then Quatre knew relief again, and time without hunger and pain. It seemed to cool and warm him all at once, and it took the weight from his body. Floating.

Duo thought he looked almost happy when those dazed aqua eyes rolled up to him. He checked Quatre's wrists under the bonds, which were slowly scabbing over the fresh tears the blonde had gotten a few days ago during their struggle - _lovemaking_ -, and found them to be recovering without too much trouble and no infection. It was more than he could say about Quatre's hygienic state. The American frowned as he sniffed the air and caught sight of the stained mattress his lover now laid on, and the dirty clothes. He needed to bathe him again. Maybe tonight, after Trowa'd left. Quatre was already dozing off, so it wouldn't be too hard of a task. After that, food.

There was the smallest flare of alarm as Duo tried to remember the last time he'd propped Quatre up and fed him soup, but he dismissed it quickly. Quatre would get some tonight, so it didn't matter that much any more. He would even put vitamins in the broth.

"It's okay, baby. Bath, dinner, and bed tonight. You're getting spoiled." He brushed sticky bangs from the pasty forehead and laid a soft kiss between the drawn together brows. "I love you, Quatre. I'll always love you."

After adjusting one of the old blankets over the tranquil blonde, Duo stood and dusted himself off before turning back to the ladder. When he'd scaled it and was again kneeling by the floor to close that shaft of light, he called down his goodbyes. "One hour or so, I promise. Just got to take care of something. Be good, okay?"

In dusty cerulean eyes, the square of light from above dimmed, and then vanished, and slowly his pupils dilated from more than the dark.

XxXxX

"This is our living room."

Trowa dodged Duo's wide sweep of his arms as he showed off the room, but really, he didn't blame him his moment of grandeur. It **was** nice. Better than Quatre'd described in all of his rambling. It was the perfect little home. It would have been warm on it's own, but with some of the familiar furnishings they'd once shared, Trowa already had the mournful thought that this was more home than his own apartment.

"It's beautiful, Duo."

"Oh, you ain't seen nothin yet. Wait'll you see our bedroom, and the backyard! Even the kitchen's amazing. Quatre says it makes him feel like a little housewife, but he really looks cute when he gets the time to putz about in there."

When Trowa followed Duo into the kitchen, he had to admit it was easy to see the blonde standing before the counters with an apron on, stirring at their dinner like he used to. Duo followed Trowa's gaze like he too was seeing it, though Trowa would never know that Quatre hadn't been given the chance to do that; he simply thought that Duo was missing his lover's presence around the house.

The backyard was as promised, and it quickly became Trowa's favorite part of the house. Whatever else Duo would show him, it was that grassy slope and the flowers, then that shaded swing, that really did him in.

"You really lucked out, finding this place."

"I know we did." Duo was grinning, leading the way to the swing as he dropped down there. "Quatre was right. This was the place for us. Flat out. Now I just wish he had the time to enjoy it a little more himself."

"Have you spoken to him about it?"

"Well… Yeah. Kinda." Duo looked down, shrugging, and Trowa felt a small pang of sympathy.

"You should. Quatre would want to know."

"I know he would, Tro, but right now… You know, work's busy too. Important. We'll have time for domestic when life calms down. How about you? How are you doing?"

"I'm… Well."

"That was one of those famous blah-Trowa answers if I ever heard one. I want details, man, not a clinical answer"  
Trowa managed another half smile. "I haven't unpacked yet."

"No? Christ, with how anal you were at the house, I'd have thought the place would be damn near sterile by now and arranged like a museum!"

"It was having you and the others around that spurred that urge on." He admitted softly, and watched Duo blink and process it.

"Ya know, I can understand that, Tro. I've noticed a few of my own habits changing since moving here with just Quatre. I'm in the kitchen a lot more, and I don't just leave my laundry around now because I know I'll trip over it all when I'm the one going around to gather it. Sounds bad, I know, but being on my own's honestly made me a little more responsible."

Another small good thing to have come from it, or so Trowa thought as he recalled the numerous times he'd watched Heero stalk around gathering up the garbage Duo often left in his wake like the debris of a tornado, or had heard Quatre muttering choice words to himself while scrubbing off some unnamed weird substance from a days old plate.

"Want a beer, Trowa? I'm pretty parched myself." Duo grinned as he stood up and stretched on the chair. "We can down em while I show you the rest of the house."

"No… I'm driving back, remember? I'll take a soda if you have one though."

"I do. Come on, m'man." Together they walked back into the kitchen of the little cottage, Duo waving him on ahead to the living room as he drifted over to the fridge. "Go ahead, I'll grab ya one. We'll do the upstairs first."

After violet eyes had watched the older teen vanish into the other room, Duo finally opened the refrigerator door. Supplies were getting low, more medicine than food decorating the top two shelves, but he found a couple of the needed cans on the bottom one. He was whistling as he strolled in to join Trowa, holding one out. With those in hand and both lids popped with that cheery noise of freshness, they wandered up the stairs and to the bedroom.

Time to finish off this tour and get back to what really mattered. His love was waiting, and Duo owed him a lot of very special attention tonight.


	8. Discovery

"Not bad at all."

They were watching the sun set out of the bedroom window about twenty minutes later, sitting on the rug at the foot of the huge bed that Duo and Quatre shared. Trowa could admit to himself that he loved the way the sun turned the wooden floor red and gave the room a hazy glow as if by firelight. It was the sort of room he was almost envious for, just the warmth and satisfaction it made one feel. Duo looked like he was feeling it too, a grin resting smug on his face as he leaned against the dresser and finished off his can.

"No, it ain't. Not at all. It's just too bad Quatre isn't home yet. He'd have loved to show you all this, probably coulda pointed out all the stuff I forgot to, like about what the counters are made of or the foundation. Stuff like that. I just know I like it. That's enough for me, though."

He nodded in agreement, that it should be enough, but he wished Quatre had been here too. He would have liked to hear about some of the finer things about the house that made it more than 'home' for the Arabian and more 'art'.

"You'll tell him I stopped by?"

"Yeah." Duo nodded and opened an eye, catlike as he looked over Trowa's face with a faint smile. "You're taking off, huh? Figured. It's getting late. I will tell him you came though, and if you want to come back sometime, give me a call ahead of time and maybe I can get him to take the day off or something to visit with you?"

Trowa opened his mouth to encourage the idea with an 'I'd like that', and that was when the sound of tires over the road outside came, not passing, but slowing and then pulling into the driveway. _I will get to see him after all._

He glanced to Duo to gauge the redhead's reaction to having his lover return, and had to blink at the suspicion over that pale face. Duo was getting to his feet and looking at the window as though seriously perturbed. Trowa stood as well, and together, they listened to the open and shut of the door, and footsteps coming over the gravel, Trowa wondering at Duo's behavior, and Duo stock still and with that strange expression.

A knock came downstairs.

Duo jumped a little, then turned and gave Trowa a shaky smile.

"Would Quatre knock?" He had to ask, the pair of them moving together towards the stairs, a quick task once the redhead got moving.

"Not unless he had a few too many margaritas with the ladies."

By the time they got to the living room, Duo was looking a little more animate, but Trowa still thought he was too pale and drawn, and it took him a moment to figure out why. _This whole thing, it probably reminds him of what happened with the cops and Heero that night. He probably thinks it's an officer behind that door, coming to tell him something's happened to Quatre and-_

And Trowa shivered. That wasn't something he wanted to think of, but now that it was in mind, like most of those things, it wouldn't be dislodged. He found as Duo was reaching for the knob, his own hands were tightly clenched at his sides, his own heart thudding painfully in his chest. Would it make sense though? That as he'd been a witness for that night, he should be a witness again? Only this time, the blow would be even more personal, and maybe he'd be the one left tearing at his own hair. Him and Duo, utterly destroyed together, and in just one knock.

Duo opened the door. Trowa held his breath. And the figure on the other side looked at them both with a tight scowl before thrusting a bottle of wine at the redhead. "It took you long enough to get to the door, Maxwell. Just what was I interrupting?"

"Fei?" It was a hesitant gasp from Duo.

"Who else? Now can I come in and join your little party or do I need a written invitation?"

Trowa laughed. It was that or crying, and though neither was appealing, the first option was more tolerable. Duo was clearly having a hard time coping too. He stood there for a second like he really would turn Wufei away, then numbly moved to the side to let the brunette slip on by.

Wufei nodded to him, and Trowa managed to flap a hand in greeting, before the oriental asked - "What's wrong with you both? Trowa's laughing, and you look like you've seen a ghost, Maxwell."

While Duo stumbled with his words, he managed to get a hold of himself enough to answer. "I think we were both thinking of another night. You startled us."

The redhead quickly nodded his agreement, before a grin worked it's way onto his features. "You two set this up, didn't you? To visit like this?"

Trowa shook his head, and Wufei snorted.

"No. I told Trowa to visit, and he did, which I doubted, and while doing so I realized I should probably do the same. It's just coincidence."

"Hey… Not that I mind, Fei, I'm just surprised. I didn't have any time to really pick up, and like I told him, you both missed out on catching Kitten. He's out with his new friends."

Wufei raised an eyebrow and looked to the Latin, who nodded softly. He pointed a finger at the bottle nestled in Duo's arms. "A little late for him to be out… But that's fine. I just wanted to get to know your house, and bring that by."

"Eh." Duo shrugged, slowly closing the door. _Didn't plan it my ass. The two of them are in it together. Interlopers. Wufei came to make sure I'd be distracted so that Trowa could put the moves on him. Liars._ He forced his lips up into a grin, holding the bottle by the neck and waving it a little. "Hell of a gift too, Fei. Thanks."

"You're welcome." Wufei stopped by the small fireplace, eyeing it's clean stones and then the mantle, before looking back at the redhead. "I wasn't interrupting, was I?"

"Nah. I was just finishing Trowa's tour of the place and we were checking out the sunset upstairs."

"You got a tour?" He looked at Trowa, who nodded then motioned with a tip of the chin towards the kitchen and backyard.

"You ought to get him to take you out there, Wufei. It's something to see. Peaceful little garden."

Wufei looked towards Duo, a fine black eyebrow raised in inquisition. Duo looked back, thinking quickly. _Sooner I get this done, sooner I can send them away. Tell em I'm tired, or drunk, or just bash them over the heads with their fucking wine, but get them gone._ He smiled again and bounced a little on his feet, moving in that direction. "Hey, sure! Come on, Wufei, you gotta see this. Bet you'll like it too, just like Quat. I like the location best, all away from the rush of the city, and the bedroom, but I'd lay money on that being your favorite part too. I'll give you the whole tour I gave him, then we'll settle back for a drink or too?"

"Thank you, Maxwell." A little nod as he turned to follow the energetic redhead, who had paused at the kitchen door, looking back to Trowa.

"Hey? You coming, buddy?"

"Actually… Can I use your restroom, Duo?"

"No, I'm a bathroom nazi." A chuckle before Duo continued on, motioning with a finger for Wufei to follow. "It's the door off the kitchen. Knew I forgot to show you something. Just meet us outside when you're done."

"All right."

Duo gave him a wink, then bounded out of the kitchen door with his braid slapping on his butt like a demented wave of goodbye or perhaps just a unique way of flipping someone off. Wufei walked more calmly after him, shaking his head and muttering something Trowa only barely caught about it being 'the same old Maxwell'.

Really, he was glad to see that spring in Duo's step. After hearing him sound so strange on the phone and catching those brief visions of a more jittery and nervous American, these glances of the boy who used to be a common sight sprawled on their couch eating popcorn in his boxers were nice. Refreshing even. If they went back to living together, he was sure he'd get annoyed with those things all over again, but right now it was just familiar and as comfortable as an old pair of slippers.

Trowa watched them from behind the window's lace curtains, Duo's arms nearly tying themselves in a knot as he pointed out this plant or that rock, or maybe the bug over there, and then the swing which Duo was quickly flouncing too, and he smiled before turning and heading towards the first door. He could tell by Wufei's slow walking and the turns of his head that he was enjoying that bit of nature. That was the only thing he hadn't understood about Wufei moving to the city; how he'd get along without the peace that areas like this offered. Maybe city parks, even if that didn't seem to be the Oriental's style, or at least in Trowa's opinion.

He was still musing on that fact when he opened the door and started fumbling for a light switch, and instead managed to knock something against the wall down, something wooden by the sounds of it clattering off the floor. He jerked his hand back and that's when he felt the chain hanging down slither across the back of his hand like a long legged insect, and after another jab into the blackness, his lean fingers worked their way around the delicate length. He pulled, and blinked at the harsh glaring light that came from the bare bulb above.

Not the bathroom, unless the toilet was hidden behind shelves of canned goods and cleaning supplies and a shower over there behind the ironing board. A pantry. He looked out the door and peered around the room, picking out the other doorway that actually lay open across the tiled room and already was showing him a shower stall. Sighing, he lowered his eyes to the floor and the broom that turned out to be the fleeing noisy one from earlier.

_Where's all that circus grace now?_

Chuckling to himself, Trowa knelt down and hooked his fingers under the wooden stick, boosting it and preparing to turn to put it back against the wall, and then he stopped. There were lines in the floor. Cut in. And hinges.

He looked down at those dark cuts in a perfect square, the broom still resting in one hand, and blinked. This place hadn't looked like it had a basement, but it made sense. He wondered if Duo'd been down there yet. Trowa would have thought the redhead would have been bubbling and anxious to tell him about the rec room he had planned or whatever if he had known, considering how much he'd tried to convince the others to look for a house with a basement before they'd moved in with one another. Or maybe it was just a storage crawl space, and that's why nothing was said, barely enough room for someone to put a few old trunks of clothes.

He put the broom aside, back on the floor, then hooked his fingers into one of the cracks without further thought. Trowa winced his eyes against the dust that should have come when he popped the wooden square out, then blinked when none came and it moved without any effort. He put it aside, resting up against the first row of shelves, and bent over the dark shape now cut into the floor to look down.

The first few steps of a wooden ladder, the smell of something rotting down here, like cans of food had been broken and left to rot, or like a woodchuck found it's way in and died, and a lumpy looking mattress. And on that, what looked to be-

"Oh my god… Quatre…?"


	9. With a bang

He was lucky he hadn't tumbled into the dark opening himself when he craned his head and body to better allow the light to fall on that dull face below. Trowa caught himself on the edge with one hand, clamping painfully tight there as sallow yellow light lit up Quatre's cracked lips, the sunken shape of his cheeks, and then those cerulean eyes. They looked like dusty marbles above the bruised flesh under his eyes, but Trowa's heart lurched in shocked relief when the pupils so slowly contracted from the glare. 

_Not dead._

That was all that mattered. Never mind that he didn't have a reason for why Quatre was down here in the dark with that dead-rat smell. Nor why he looked the way he did, like a child's forgotten doll laying there on that dirty mattress. He was alive. All else could wait.

"Quatre…" Soft, it escaped him without thought as he sat back on his rear and dangled his legs down to seek purchase on the top rung of the ladder, "I'm coming. We're going to get you some help."

"He doesn't need any help, you treacherous fuck." The voice behind him spoke up with such calm friendliness in spite of the content of the words, a sort of 'hey, fancy meeting you here, ol'pal'-tone, that Trowa turned towards it expectantly, and thus caught the swing of cast iron skillet fully on his jaw. "He's got me."

**CRUNCH.** Trowa was stunned at the clarity of that noise. Louder than the pain, it seemed, which blossomed roses of red in his vision, was that near comic book written sound as his jaw shattered in multiple places. He saw the floor rushing up to greet him, but that seemed silly, as did the hard weight of something laying on his tongue. Right before Trowa hit the wood, he spit that out, and his eyes widened at the bloody stump of a tooth. Darkness was what leapt up to claim Trowa, and down below if he'd had the sense to, Quatre would have told him it was a good friend.

Duo stood above Trowa's slumped form, his makeshift weapon raised like a batter on the plate and his lip pulled back from his teeth in a silent snarl. There was no argument from the Latin's body though. Trowa was out, out, out of the park and Duo had nailed an unquestionable homerun.

It wavered, then drooped, and Duo let out a warbly breath. His steps to the hole were jittery, his eyes cold as they appeared and blocked out the light overhead once again for the blonde who looked up from below.

Still there. Of course he was. The redhead's lips gained a smile that was more like a rabid fox then anything else. The dull vacant stare of his lover was on him, and though it held no recognition, Duo swore he saw a glimmer of adoration in them. A my-hero moment if he'd ever saw it. Quatre knew their time was going to be interrupted, but Duo has protected them again.

"Don't worry, Kitten, he's gone. Bastard won't play the interloper this go around." Savage again, that flare of teeth as Duo pulled his lips back. "This is you and me time."

He nodded to the unmoving Quatre, then stepped away and knelt beside Trowa. A fine line of bloody drool hung from his slack lips, puddling on the floor. "Damn it, Trowa, just like a little kid in bed. Another fucking mess for me to clean up. Some house guest you are."

Snorting back a laugh, he crooked his hand under Trowa's cheek and turned the face towards him, amused at the lumpy feel of the flesh under his thumb where a bone-earthquake had taken place. White under the eyelids flickered, but it didn't worry Duo. This pup was most definitely out. "Looks like ya lost a tooth or two, too. Oh well. No dentist trip for you, I think."

No most certainly not. He looked down at the face with it's blood shined lips and raspy through the mouth breathing for a few minutes, then lost interest. He dropped it and it thumped back to the floor.

Duo would have liked to have waited until Trowa woke up, to talk to him real nice like about the punishment of being a nosy boyfriend stealing whore, maybe talk with him until Trowa was crying like a baby, but there just wasn't the time and this wasn't the place. He didn't bother mourning that as he turned, still crouched on his heels, and started looking at the cleaning chemicals around him. To whap the bastard again would be too messy, or might make too much noise, and things were hard enough to tend to now.

His pale fingers wrapped around a can of carpet spray on the floor beneath the shelves and hoisted it up before his face so his eyes could flicker over the labels before rejecting it and putting it back. Not a huge selection, but at last he settled on a large bottle of laundry bleach. The trick would be to get enough down Trowa's throat before the damned stuff kicked in, and to make sure he stayed silent.

He twisted the lidoff and wrinkled his nose at the wafting bitter sterile scent that rose from the bottle, then turned to Trowa.

"… What are you doing, Duo?"

Duo jumped, and clear liquid sloshed out. Slowly the redhead turned to the figure standing in the kitchen a few feet away, door still open behind him, and his lip curled back from his teeth in a silent growl. Incredibly, it became a welcoming grin just a split second later.

"Well, hey there buddy."

Wufei stared. His inner soldier training still took control as he measured the situation with a critical eye. Ally on the floor. Out. Blood. Lots of it, so possibly dead. Hostile figure -- _It's Duo! What wrong with him!_ -- blocking any chance of checking that. Holding bleach by the smell of it. One exit behind him, another through the arch of the living room.

Cautiously, Wufei nodded to Duo, his tone even. "What's going on here?"

Duo blinked at him, and that grin widened. He glanced down at the bottle in his hands, then to Trowa's face, then up again to the Chinese man. He was still smiling, and something about the expression brought goosebumps down Wufei's arms. "Trowa tripped. I'm just cleaning up the mess before it can stain the floor. You know how Quatre gets."

"Tripped…?" Wufei repeated, looking at the spreading explosion of color on Trowa's mutated jaw. Still alive, he thought. "Duo. Put down the bottle and step out here, okay?"

"Oh no. Can't do that, sorry, Fei fei." The redhead shook his head slowly, looking truly regrettable before the shark like smile returned. "Quatre'd kill me, ya know? For leaving a mess like this. And he'll be home any time."

_Winner's dead._ The thought came to him in cold certainty. Dead, and had been for a while. Maybe even died naturally, but whatever happened, it'd snapped Duo's mind, and now this. "Quatre's not coming home, is he, Duo? So step out of the closet, and we'll talk."

Another blink, lizard like.

"Not coming home? Sure he is." He sounded so honestly perplexed and amused, reaching up to touch his temple a few times. "He's been a little sick. Up here. But he's getting better."

"… I don't think he is, Duo. I think we need to talk, and to get Trowa help."

He ignored mention of the pilot at his feet. "He is. Quatre's gonna be fine. We had some problems, but we're working it out. We were always meant to be… Even you saw that, huh? Best of pals."

Wufei nodded, though in truth, he was really beyond putting thought into the words coming from Duo. He was sliding a hand slowly behind him, to the back of his shirt where the gun he'd never really been able to give up still lay. Dangerous, and he knew it… But these were dangerous times, as the world had proven once again. "Of course you were."

He brightened, and then sat back on his heels a little more. "See? I knew you'd get it! People like Trowa, they just couldn't see it. Always wanting what was already planned, but you get it."

"Yes, I get it, Duo." He slipped his fingers around the cool metal grip.

"They just keep getting in the way. Always trying to get with him, and then never treating him right when they go him. Hurting him, or yelling at him, or never telling him that they needed him."

_He's not talking about Trowa any more…_ Wufei eased the gun out of it's holster, so silent.

"I always tell him that. Every damn day. I tell him 'Quatre, I love ya, and I need ya too. You know that, baby?'. And he just smiles at me and laughs, and tells me he loves me too. Loves -ME-." Duo hit his chest lightly with the last word in punctuation. "Not fucking Trowa. And not Heero either. He loves me."

_Heero?_ Wufei paused, the gun free and dangling from his hand behind his back. "Heero?"

"Yeah… Bastard. He didn't deserve Quatre. I don't either. I mean, the guy's an angel… But I at least make an effort. I try to fix things."

"How?"

"How?" He glanced up, seeming to realize again that the person there was actually listening and intelligent. "How'd I fix them? I… I make em better?"

Wufei shook his head, slowly. The questioning tone in Duo's own voice only confirmed Duo's mental state in his mind. "You can't make all things better."

"Nah, not everything. But I make our stuff, Quatre's and mine, better. Our being together. I make it work."

"Make it work how, Duo?"

Childish, the way he lifted a finger to his lips, a mockery of the old spirited Duo shining in his clever eyes as he shook his head and sang - "I'll never tell."

"… Where's Quatre?"

Duo closed his mouth, looking suspiciously at Wufei. "Why?"

Dangerous ground. Wufei kept the same calm voice. "I just want to know."

"… No, you want him too, don'tcha?" Dawning realization in the violet eyes even as they narrowed. Surity sweeping in like an ocean storm rushing on hapless sailors. "Maybe you weren't obvious, but I saw ya looking too."

"I never looked at him that way. You're… Not healthy, Duo."

"I'm fine. Never been better! I got my baby, and this house, and that just pisses you off, doesn't it? But oh yeah… I saw ya looking. When he'd cook and you'd bat your eyes and tell him how good it was. It wasn't his fucking cooking you were thinking about, you dick." The clunk as the bleach was set down drew Wufei's gaze, then right back to the redhead as Duo stumbled to his feet near the hole in the floor. _Was he going to push Trowa down there before I came? Is that where Quatre's body is? What have you done, Duo?_

"Doesn't matter though. You looked then, but he's with me now. With ME. And we're working things out." Duo cracked his knuckles in front of him, sharp get-to-business noises like small firecrackers in Wufei's ears. "There's a lot of sacrifices that need to be made for love, Fei my friend. I'm willing to go all the way. How 'bout you?"

As he strode forward quickly, Wufei took a small step backwards and pulled out his gun.

In the hellish second before he pulled the trigger, he saw the widening of the purple eyes that dropped down to the barrel of the gun, the utter surprise and mortal understanding that filled them. Insane or not, some terrors were built in. Crystal clear, he heard the name that came from Duo's mouth, and it wasn't his own, but rather the name of the one in their group who was already long in his grave.

"Heero! I-" Duo raised his hands.

Wufei closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.


	10. Autumn Leaves

Shadyvale Acres as exactly what it sounded like; a peaceful asylum for those too dangerous to be 'people' any more… And Quatre hated it at first sight. 

The lovely weeping willows didn't seem to play gently in the warm breeze to him as Trowa pushed the wheelchair up the incline built beside worn stone stairs; they seemed to be waving goodbye to free life. The trickling of the fountain's pond they passed was sickly and the smell from it's lily pads was rotting. The clean entrance of the building looked to be faded yellow instead of off-white to his eyes, and the first slam of cool air from it's open doors made him flinch. It was the sort of place where people would never speak above a whisper, unless they were screaming, and they always had plenty of needles to take care of that, didn't they?

The nurses behind their neat little desks were all dressed in white and all had thin lips they'd keep pressed together, and somewhere, Quatre knew there were lots of doors with little glass windows built right in.

It wasn't hell here at Shadyvale, but something worse. A purgatory where days stopped mattering and years could pass by at an alarming rate while you finger-painted and talked about your emotions with stone faced doctors.

Trowa must have sensed some of his misgivings, because the wheels of the chair slowed and then stopped, and his tall friend walked around to the front to kneel down before him.

Quatre saw the way Trowa's eyes flicked over his face, taking in the hallow cheekbones and shocked eyes he himself saw every time he could bare to look in the mirror without crying, and that was all right. Weren't his own eyes moving over the healed but still so uneven line of Trowa's jaw even as he caught that examination in his friend? To think, Trowa used to have a face that belonged right on a marble bust, a Grecian god, and now though still handsome, it was a face you would look at and slowly notice that something just didn't jive. At least his teeth were fixed. For a while, even through the random bursts of screams and crying jags, Trowa's five-year-old gap-toothed mouth had made Quatre burst into hysterical giggles that sometimes left him feeling faint.

Neither of them was going to win the Best-Looking Man award anytime soon, Quatre thought with a wry smile.

The smile didn't set Trowa any more at ease though, judging by the small frown that appeared.

Quatre looked strongly into that face in silence for a minute, sporting his own stubborn frown and daring Trowa to speak first, then cracked with an exasperated sigh. "I just don't see why all asylums have to **look** like just that. A nut house. The coats, the grounds, the… The silence. I can't imagine being here. I can't imagine… What it's like… For him."

He meant to sound strong, but when the last came out in a soft squeak, Trowa didn't seem to look down on him for it. The brunette just nodded, quietly, then reached to lay a hand over his. "It's not that bad. It's actually nice here, Quatre. The best in the area. It's clean, and there are private rooms, and the staff is very-"

"I know all that!" Quatre felt a flare of guilt when Trowa winced back, and it made him bite his tongue for a moment before he freed his hand from under Trowa's and instead brought it to lay over the other's, as though he would now give comfort. "… I know I'm biased. None of them will be clean enough. Or happy enough… And it -**is**- a good place. I just…"

"I know." Trowa nodded, and for a wonder, Quatre thought he really did know. Trowa wasn't agreeing that he blamed Quatre, but he understood that the blonde did blame himself, and would need time to get over that. In the meantime, nothing would be enough and he'd have so many debts he had to pay.

They looked at each other for a few moments, then the click of low heels (white, Quatre would have bet) came up to them. "Mr. Winner?"

XxXxX

The walk to Duo's room was long, but it didn't feel long enough to Quatre. How could a walk from the rational world of the sane to the off the cliffs world of utter lunacy really be completed in three minutes? Was there really such a small line between the two polar states of mental health? Sometimes, he wondered.

The room behind the glass was nice. There was that word again. Never awesome in a place like this, or terrific, but 'nice'. It was clean, of course, and white, and… Bland. No curtains. No hard objects. That mattress in the corner, and papers on the floor with pictures on them.

Duo, even in this state, looked like a ruby in that environment, but it hurt Quatre's heart to see him.

He sat with crossed legs on the center of the floor, staring up and out the window with the vacant eyes of the drugged. Around his face, his shorn locks were wispy and clean, but uncombed. It was shocking not to see the rope down his back, but to instead see the feather ends on the nape of his neck. That rope, that Quatre could remember holding onto as he kissed Duo's ear and they arched together towards the finest of pleasures, feeling it's weight in his hands and hearing Duo telling him it was okay, baby, come on, come on, just...

Quatre closed his eyes, but could still see Duo's image burnt onto the back of his lids. Dead purple eyes, short auburn hair burning in the sunlight through wired-windows, the shadow lines of them over pallid flesh. Duo was smiling… But there wasn't nothing -Duo- in that smile.

"He looks well." That came from Trowa, and Quatre could have reached out and grabbed him by the shirt front, shaken him and screamed at how he could say it. Instead, he kept still with his hands clenched on the wheelchair's arms.

"Oh yes! He's doing wonderfully." The rustle of papers from the nurse to his right. "Just yesterday, he was talking a little with some of the others in the activity room."

Talking? And that was good? No. Duo would have had them laughing, would have started a conga line or a game of strip poker. That wasn't good, not for Duo. Maybe for this lump of boy shaped clay, but not for Duo.

"Really?" Interest from Trowa. "Is he still having those episodes…? Or can Quatre visit him again?"

A hesitation, and Quatre knew the answer even before it came from her mouth. He knew, and had known for weeks. No visits, not after the last one had sent Duo into a rage, screaming and wrenching him from his wheel chair, dragging him across the floor and clawing at the nurses who tried to get too close. Like a dragon with it's horde, or a lion over a fresh kill. No visits.

"Well, Mr. Barton, there's been a lot of progress, but we're still quite a ways from regular visits, or any outings."

"I see." Calm. Trowa radiated it, and Quatre tried to take it into himself, tried to breath it in, to make his heart beat match it's soothing tones. "What about the bullet wound?"

"Still healing nicely, Mr. Barton. There will be a small scar, of course, but it's healing nicely. He hasn't torn it open again since the first week, and there's been no new bleeding."

He felt Trowa's hand on his shoulder, and was glad for it, his own rising shakily to lay over it and squeeze. "That's good. What about his weight?"

The rest was business. Quatre blocked it out. He didn't want to hear about the regularity of Duo's bowel movements, or his new tree picture with brown and green finger paints. He didn't want to hear about the drugs they put into him daily, or his new friends (who just happened to drool and stare vacantly too), he wanted to see Duo. He opened his eyes again, and watched through the glass.

Was Duo thinking of him, like he was thinking of Duo? Behind the glassy stare, Quatre thought so. Duo always thought of him, didn't he? Always. He remembered hearing that, from within the grip of a sweet morphine dream. It was all for him.

Duo was lost in some nowhere world, but there, maybe he still had what he wanted. There Quatre haunted his mind, and smiled, and they rode the Ferris wheel ALL night long.

Maybe he would smile if they could talk. He'd grin and give his usual victory sign when Quatre told he had won… Because now Duo haunted him too. Awake or sleeping, that grin, those husky words, they followed him. He knew without turning around that there would always be a pair of purple eyes over his shoulder, and they would always be hungry.

And behind those eyes… Well, maybe there were more eyes. The blue ones that had been stolen from him at the end of a gun.

XxXxX

Trowa was quiet as they left and that was good. Nice, even. Trowa knew when to keep still and just offer his silent strength. He didn't comment on the tears that tracked down Quatre's cheeks and colored his collar darker, nor the way Quatre's hands shook in his lap. Trowa was nice. Real nice.

And together they'd go home to Quatre's nice mansion, with it's nice and ready to help staff, and everything would just be nice.

Until that night, when Quatre would wake up in the dark with a scream just behind his lips. He's shake and shake, and look to the moon beyond his curtains and see Duo's face instead grinning down, waiting to eat him up, to eat everyone up, and then he'd stay up until dawn and wait for the knock on the door to tell him all over that someone is dead.

The nice day could begin all over again. And over. Until he was sitting there beside Duo, smiling and staring.

Trowa was gentle as he picked Quatre up, noting again how sickening easy it was to do so, and tucked him into the front seat of the car. He brushed the lax hair from the blonde's pale brow, stared down at the miserable face, then backed away and softly closed the door before jogging around to the other side. Quatre was silent on the ride home, and Trowa found oddly fascinated by the look on his face. It was pinched, and knowing, and accepting… It was a look he couldn't remember having seen for years. His usual doll-like attractiveness was replaced by this abused look, and damned if he didn't want to take it away.

They drove down the country road with leaves fluttering up in the after wake of the car, and through the clear window as they left that sterile building behind, Quatre's wane face watched the puffs of clouds overhead as though they bore the faces of old friends.

((Finish. No, it's not a happy ending, not exactly though there are hints of it, but I **am** happy with it. This and the first part of this story have so far been one of my favorites to write, falling short of only my first. I hope you enjoyed reading it, and if so, will sample my others. Many thanks for all reviews, as they are the fuel that keeps me going.))


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